San Antonio is the in the bottom 10 of U.S. metros when it comes to broadband Internet access

With 29.8% of its households lacking a high-speed Internet connection, the San Antonio-New Braunfels area is the 8th-worst large U.S. metro for broadband availability, according to a new study.

That number is higher than the 29.2% of households at the national level lacking broadband, according to cord-cutting website KilltheCableBill.com's analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center. Nearly 11% of San Antonio-New Braunfels households have no internet access at all.

The study hits the streets after Congress last month passed the Biden administration's long-awaited $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes $65 billion to improve broadband access and affordability. About $100 million of that broadband funding is destined for Texas, according to a White House estimate.

San Antonio and Bexar County have launched efforts such as the BiblioTech digital libraries to narrow its digital divide, the margin of people who don't have high-speed internet access. That divide disproportionately affects low-income individuals and people of color, according to Pew Research data.

According to Pew, 92% of adults making more than $75,000 annually had access to high-speed internet in 2021, compared to just 57% of those earning less than $30,000 annually. When it comes to race, 80% of white adults have broadband access, compared to 71% of Black adults and 65% of Hispanic adults.

The study's rankings appear to bear out the link between broadband and income. All 15 of the worst metros for access, including bottom-ranked Birmingham, Alabama, had poverty rates of around 10% or higher. San Antonio's is 13.5%, according to the data.

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