This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato, coming to you today from the studios of Texas Public Radio in San Antonio.

Later in the hour, a trip out to the giant gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn.

The first time to check in on the state of science.

This is KERNO.

St. Louis Public Radio News.

Iowa Public Radio News.

Local science stories of national importance, and us being in Texas Public Radio in San Antonio,

chances are you use some of the Internet services each day all over Texas.

Maybe you get your entertainment there.

You communicate with friends and family.

Use it to buy things.

You know, it is an ever-growing part of people's lives and businesses.

But here in Texas, where everything is bigger, almost 2 million people are without access to

high-speed Internet, and the size and wide-open spaces of the state can make wiring rural

communities something of, let's call it,

a challenge. Joining me to talk about it is Paul Flav, technology and entrepreneurship reporter at

Texas Public Radio. He's here with me in San Antonio. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having us here

today. It's nice to be here. So, okay, let's talk about how big the digital divide is.

What's the population of Texas and how much, what percentage of those people?

Yeah, so it's about 28 million people in Texas and around 2 million are without internet access or access to high-speed internet.

And they estimate about 80% of those are in rural areas. Where would rural areas be in Texas, for example? All over the place. Really, all over the place. I mean, there's some big hubs like, you know, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Austin. But all of West Texas, a lot of East Texas, you know, once you get past Houston and North Houston. So it's a big swath

of the state. So we might not really not know how many people the exact numbers are. Yeah,

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