The Brookings Institute just released a report, Broadband Adoption Rates and Gaps in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, that looks at metropolitan broadband rates around the country. The report uses a broad definition of broadband that includes cable modem, DSL, fiber, cellular data, satellite, and fixed wireless service.

The report acknowledges that broadband is still growing and the country saw 2.6 million households add broadband from 2013 to 2014, bringing the overall national penetration rate to 75.1%. But Brookings found that there is a lot of variance in the penetration rates in different parts of the country.

There are metropolitan areas like San Jose where the broadband penetration rate is greater than 88%. The top ten metro markets for broadband has Washington DC in tenth place at 84.7%. But there are a number of other cities that lag behind these national statistics. At the bottom is Laredo, TX at 56.2%, joined at the bottom of the list with places like McAllen, TX, Visalia, CA, Dothan, AL, and Beaumont, TX.

Brookings looked at a number of different factors that affect broadband usage for households. It’s not surprising that household income is a factor. Households with an annual income greater than $50,000 have an 88.8% broadband penetration rate while those with less than $20,000 income are only at 46.8%. Education also seems to be an influence and 91.5% of households with somebody with a bachelor’s degree have broadband while households where nobody finished high school are at 54.1%.

The report did not find a big correlation between race and broadband adoption. While there were cities where blacks or Hispanics have low broadband adoption rates, there were others where they did not. The report concludes that the determining factor is household income and not race.

The report also found some correlation with age and households that have a family member under 18 had a penetration rate of 81.9% while those with everybody over 65 were at 64.5%. But the correlation with age did not hold across all markets and the places where the elderly have lower broadband acceptance seems to be where their income is the lowest. So again, income seems like a more important factor than age.

The report found a few correlations that make a lot of sense. For instance, it found that almost all homes that include a telecommuter have broadband.

Overall the report concludes that metropolitan areas with the highest incomes, with the highest percentage of tech workers, and with the highest average education also have the highest broadband penetration rates.

The report observes that households widely value broadband and that the rate of broadband subscriptions continues to climb. But they conclude that we cannot make the transition to an all-digital society until broadband penetration rate is as ubiquitous as the rates for water and electricity. They conclude that it is going to take targeted assistance programs to get broadband into more homes. While they point to the federal Lifeline and the newly named ConnectHome programs as being a needed part of the solution, they don’t see these kind of programs closing the digital divide. They recommend many more local initiatives, including programs by carriers, to try to get broadband into more households.