More than 250,000 Texas homes, mostly in rural areas, don’t have access to high-speed internet, according to a new broadband services map commissioned by the Texas Department of Agriculture and released Wednesday by Connected Texas.

Though less than 4 percent of the state’s population, that’s still “more than all the households in the state of Vermont,” said Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who hopes lawmakers will help bring improved internet access and, with it, more economic opportunities to those sparsely populated regions.

The push to pinpoint areas without broadband access nationwide stems from a $7.2 billion ...

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