Nearly one in seven California households lacks access to high-speed internet, according to a new report from UC Riverside that highlights the state’s persistent digital divide.
The study, authored by Edward Helderop, associate director of UCR’s Center for Geospatial Sciences, found that approximately 15% of California homes don’t have broadband access—primarily in low-income urban neighborhoods and rural and tribal communities.
“A lot of American households and California households don’t have high-speed internet available at home,” Helderop told LAist. “It’s sort of just an unfortunate reality that that’s the case for the state of California.”
Affordability remains the biggest barrier to closing this gap. Even in urban areas where broadband is widely available, median monthly costs range from $70 to $80—a price point many families can’t afford.
“Many households can’t afford it, or they decide that they would prioritize some other bill over home broadband,” Helderop explained in the report.
The situation is worse in rural areas, where broadband service is often completely unavailable because telecommunications companies see little financial incentive to build infrastructure in sparsely populated regions.
“Even if users want home broadband, even if they have the means to pay for it, they may simply not have the option,” Helderop added.
The digital divide became starkly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, when students in low-income families struggled to attend online classes.
“There were these enduring images of somebody driving a car full of elementary school kids to a McDonald’s parking lot to use the Wi-Fi to do their homework in the car,” Helderop said. “And that, I think, caught a lot of policymakers by surprise.”
The report argues that California’s broadband scarcity is largely artificial, resulting from market failures and weak oversight of federal grant programs. It recommends regulating broadband providers like public utilities—imposing rate controls, universal access requirements, and reliability standards.
Digital equity advocates say available data doesn’t reflect the true extent of the problem.
“On the maps, families appear to live in ‘connected’ neighborhoods, but in reality, they still can’t afford to get online because the monopoly provider’s plans are unaffordable,” said Natalie Gonzalez, director at Digital Equity Los Angeles.
California has begun addressing the issue through Senate Bill 156, signed by Governor Newsom in 2021. The $6 billion initiative funds the construction of a state-owned “middle-mile” fiber network to serve as a backbone across the state.
“It’s the first time that any state, or any government in the United States, is taking it upon themselves to build and then own the infrastructure at the end of it,” Helderop said. “I would say that’s probably the primary reason that we don’t have universal broadband available to households in the United States right now.”
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