Who in New York still goes without a home internet connection, and why? In December 2021 the New York State Library, the Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab, Community Technology New York and the John R. Oishei Foundation launched the NYS Digital Equity Portal to help answer that question. We updated it in the spring of 2024, building its census data up from blocks so that library systems, school districts and towns could see their own numbers, and summarized what it showed in the fact sheet Toward Digital Equity.
Today we’re releasing a rebuilt dashboard. It brings the census figures forward to 2020-24 and compares them with 2015-19. It adds measured internet speeds and where the FCC says service is offered, keeps the price data, and now keeps itself up to date.
What’s in it
The dashboard draws on four public sources. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey supplies home internet subscriptions and devices, and who goes without them by age, income, race and ethnicity, including students. Ookla’s open speed test data give typical download and upload speeds. The FCC’s Broadband Data Collection, read through Esri’s Living Atlas, counts the homes and businesses that can and can’t get 100/20 Mbps service over wires or licensed fixed wireless (satellite doesn’t count). BroadbandNow’s open data give the lowest advertised price of a home plan in each ZIP code as of October 2020, still the newest such data. The About the data view lists each source.
Results are available for the state, its 23 public library systems, all 62 counties, New York’s 26 congressional, 63 Senate and 150 Assembly districts, 1,011 cities, towns and reservations, 681 school districts, ZIP codes and census tracts. The census estimates are shared among 2020 census blocks by where households and people live, then added up for each kind of area, so every area is built from the same blocks. The block file in the downloads lets anyone add them up for areas of their own.
Each census figure is compared with 2015-19, the newest five years that share no survey year with 2020-24, so the change isn’t blurred by overlapping years. The student figures are the exception: the Census Bureau began them in 2021. A change is marked only where it is larger than both periods’ margins of error allow.
The dashboard is built in Python from public data, with every step in code. Every week it checks whether the Census Bureau, Ookla or the FCC has released something newer, and when one has, it rebuilds itself. It shares its look with the rebuilt Wage Atlas, Federal Impacts Dashboard and NYS Evictions Dashboard.
How to use it
The views are listed across the top of the page.
- Map shows any measure for any kind of area, and for most measures its change since 2015-19 (for FCC service, over the year before the map), with the areas ranked beside the map and a then-and-now panel for the area you choose.
- Area profiles gives a printable fact sheet for any area: its census measures with their margins of error, then and now, beside the state’s, along with its speeds, service and prices.
- Rankings and downloads ranks areas on the headline measures and offers every measure as CSV, the map data as GeoJSON and the block file.
- About the data explains how the numbers are built and lists every source.
A few tips. Choose an area on any view, and the other views stay focused on it. On maps of a single period, a darker shade means more. On the change maps, red marks a rise and gray a fall, and areas whose change is within the margins of error are left white.
What it shows
The share of households without broadband nearly halved. In 2020-24, 706,892 New York households (9.2%) had no broadband subscription, down from 1.26 million (17.2%) in 2015-19. The share fell by more than its margin of error in every library system, congressional district and Senate district, and in 61 of the 62 counties.
Cell plans still carry much of the change. Households whose only internet is a cellular data plan grew by 47%, to 897,187. Counting them with the households that have no broadband, 1.60 million households (20.8%) are underconnected, down from 1.87 million. As in our 2024 fact sheet, wired service grew too: cable, fiber and DSL subscriptions rose by 632,113 households, more than the 379,412 by which the state’s households grew.
One household in five has no desktop or laptop. Smartphones are now in 89.4% of households, but desktops and laptops are in only 79.8%, barely more than the 78.5% of 2015-19. 672,018 households have a smartphone and no other computer, up from 430,965.
Income is still the sharpest divide. 21.8% of households earning under $35,000 have no broadband, against 3.6% of those earning $75,000 or more. Among households earning $10,000 to $19,999, the share is 26.9%.
Racial gaps have narrowed. 8.7% of Black New Yorkers and 7.8% of Hispanic New Yorkers live in homes without broadband or without a computer, close to the state’s 7.6%. In 2015-19 the figures were 18.1% and 16.6%, against 13.6% statewide.
Older New Yorkers lag other ages. 16.1% of New Yorkers 65 and over, about 551,000 people, live in homes without broadband or without a computer, against 5.6% of adults 18 to 64.
It is a statewide problem. The rural Southern Tier (13.3%) and Chautauqua-Cattaraugus (13.2%) library systems have the highest shares of households without broadband, but Brooklyn Public Library (10.5%) and New York Public Library (9.8%) are also above the state’s rate. Nassau (5.2%) has the lowest. Among counties, Yates has the highest share (20.9%).
Missing service is a rural problem. The FCC’s December 2025 map counts 87,573 homes and businesses with no 100/20 Mbps service on offer over wires or licensed fixed wireless, 1.9% of the state’s 4.7 million. In Hamilton County the share is 24% and in Franklin County 17%, while New York City has just 138 such locations. The count of unserved locations, those with no such service of even 25/3 Mbps, barely moved in the year before the map, from 70,451 to 70,270.
Where people subscribe, service is fast. From October 2025 to September 2026, the typical fixed connection in New York tested at 385 Mbps down and 145 Mbps up. Montgomery County’s typical upload speed, 19 Mbps, falls below the FCC’s 20 Mbps benchmark.
Price still matters. In October 2020, the typical lowest price of a home plan of at least 25/3 Mbps, over wires or fixed wireless, was $39.99 a month statewide and $69.99 in 20 upstate counties. For a household earning $20,000 a year, $69.99 a month is 4.2% of its income. Since January 2025, New York’s Affordable Broadband Act has required large providers to offer qualifying low-income households 25 Mbps for $15 a month.
Thank you
The NYS Digital Equity Portal was supported in part with federal CARES Act funds allocated to the New York State Library by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We built it with the John R. Oishei Foundation and Community Technology New York, and Cornell ILR student Jean Fang collected the data the first portal needed. The speed data are Speedtest® by Ookla® Global Fixed and Mobile Network Performance Maps, and the prices come from BroadbandNow.
Tell us what you see
These are a few starting points. Open the dashboard, find your library system, school district or town, and see where your community stands. If you work on digital equity and there’s something you’d like the dashboard to track, let us know.