Colorado has nearly 194,000 households and businesses that remain unconnected to internet services, and the Polis administration has made it a goal to get 99% of the state connected to reliable broadband by 2027.

But filling the shortfall won’t be easy. Broadband coverage maps currently don’t reflect the reality on the ground, something both the state and federal agencies are trying to address. More infrastructure needs to be added in rural parts of the state to better connect communities, both in the last mile to reach homes and businesses and the “middle” mile to connect those communities to larger fiber networks.

Poor internet connectivity prevents people from accessing vital services like education, health care and government support and it can hamper the ability of businesses to market themselves and reach customers, said Brandy Reitter, executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office while addressing the “Internet for All: Colorado Broadband Summit” held at the Westminster Westin Hotel on Wednesday.

And even if enough broadband infrastructure is built, the cost can be so high that many households simply aren’t in a financial position to foot the monthly bill, a problem in urban as well as rural areas.

“How do you get people connected to the internet who have access to the internet? It is a tough nut to crack,” she said.

The Biden administration has created the Internet for All initiative to take a “whole nation” approach to fill in the gaps. The signature program is the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) to help connect unserved and underserved communities. Unserved locations are defined as those with no access to download speeds of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) and underserved as those lacking access to 100 Mbps or faster.

Another $2.75 billion is available under the Digital Equity Act, which established three grant programs, with another $2 billion available to help improve access in tribal areas.

Colorado expects to receive $1 billion over the next five years in federal funds to address coverage gaps, but one of the first challenges it faces is knowing exactly where coverage is lacking and who isn’t accessing broadband that is available.

For years, the Federal Communications Commission relied on broadband providers to list where they were providing service down to the Census block. But in rural areas, those blocks can cover huge swaths of land. So long as a provider reached one town or even one building in a block, then the whole block was considered as having internet service.

“Congress has said collect location data, not census block data,” Eduard Bartholme, deputy Bureau chief of consumer and governmental affairs at the FCC told those attending the summit.

The FCC Is revamping its maps and states can challenge the information that service providers have offered, Bartholme said. Data is also being gathered on the actual, not just advertised, speeds achieved in a given location.