Just under 13 percent of school-aged children in Russell County do not have access to the internet in their homes.
That was the finding of a recent study conducted by Compare Internet and research group The Canny Vulture.
According to Compare Internet’s study, 20.3 percent of households in the United States are not connected to the internet. Mississippi had the highest rate at 32.2 percent while New Hampshire had the smallest rate of 14.7 percent.
Virginia ranked 28th in the study. According to Compare Internet, 678,975 households in Virginia are not online, or 20.2 percent. A total of 380,756 households had access via cell phones only.
According to Compare Internet’s website, “All figures come from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2024 five-year estimates, table S2801, retrieved through the Census API. This is the most recent vintage the Census publishes at county level; the 2025 five-year file is not released until December 2026. County coverage requires the five-year series, because the one-year series only covers areas with populations above 65,000.”
The site also stated, “Three variables were used. Total households (S2801_C01_001), households whose only internet subscription is a cellular data plan (S2801_C01_016), and households without an internet subscription (S2801_C01_019). The headline measure is the sum of the second and third.”
According to The Canny Vulture’s Justin Lindholm, 4 percent of Virginia’s school-aged children do not have home internet. That number runs much higher in Southwest Virginia.
“Far Southwest is where the gap runs deepest in the whole state,” Lindholm said.
Russell County has the third highest rate, Lindholm said. A total of 34.2 percent of homes are without internet. That equals 12.8 percent of school-aged children not having access at home.
The region’s numbers are as follows:
Bland: 41.2 percent of homes, 32.8 percent of students
Lee: 37.5 percent of homes, 11.2 percent of students
Russell: 34.2 percent of homes, 12.8 percent of students
Smyth: 29.7 percent of homes, 9.1 percent of students
Wise: 28.0 percent of homes, 7.5 percent of students
Scott: 27.9 percent of homes, 11.1 percent of students
Buchanan: 27.6 percent of homes, 11.6 percent of students
Washington: 26.0 percent of homes, 5.2 percent of students
Dickenson: 25.6 percent of homes, 9.9 percent of students
Tazewell: 25.1 percent of homes, 4.0 percent of students
“Virginia sits at 4.0 percent for kids, so most of these run two to three times the state,” Lindholm said. “On the household side a quarter to 40 percent of homes have no connection, about as high as anywhere in Virginia.”
