Internet access in Lyon County, NV, by the numbers

Lyon County runs from Fernley and Dayton on the US-50 corridor south to Yerington, Smith Valley and the ranch roads beyond. Its homes sit in a long strip of towns with big gaps between them, and the Census rows show it: the towns are near the state average and the spaces between are well above it.

Highlights

• Satellite: 12.0 percent of Lyon households, 2,846 of them, against 7.6 percent for Nevada (ACS 2020-2024, B28002).
• Silver Springs: 22.3 percent satellite and 23.7 percent phone-only; Stagecoach, a smaller place, about 32 percent and about 29 percent.
• ZIP 89429 (Silver Springs and Stagecoach) reports 26.3 percent satellite and 24.6 percent phone-only.
• Businesses: 874 establishments with 9,874 employees (County Business Patterns 2023).

The data

U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, table B28002 (internet subscriptions), retrieved 2026-10-02. Small places (under about 2,000 people) are rounded and read as about; a 0% or 100% there is a sampling artifact and is not printed. Households can report more than one type.

Satellite share by place, ranked

• Silver Cityabout 56%
• Stagecoachabout 32%
• Smith Valleyabout 28%
• Silver Springs22.3%
• Yerington11.9%
• Dayton8.3%
• Fernley6.5%
• Mound House4%

Ranked among places with reliable estimates only.

What is the Lyon County row?

Of 23,745 households, 71.0 percent report a cable, fiber or DSL subscription, 14.8 percent a phone data plan only, 12.0 percent satellite and 4.5 percent no subscription at all, about 1,069 households (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, table B28002). Nevada is 76.6 percent wired, so the county is more than five points short on the wired line and about three points over on phone-only. The county has 17.8 percent manufactured homes and 22.2 percent of residents are 65 or over (ACS 2020-2024).

What do the Stagecoach and Silver Springs rows say?

Silver Springs, with about 5,060 residents, reports 49.1 percent wired, 22.3 percent satellite and 23.7 percent phone-only, and 56.4 percent of its housing units are manufactured homes. Stagecoach, with about 1,892 residents, reports about 32 percent satellite and about 29 percent phone-only, and its margin of error is wide enough that we print it as about (ACS 2020-2024, B28002 and B25024). ZIP 89429, which covers both, reports 26.3 percent satellite on 3,394 households.

How do the towns on US-50 differ?

Dayton reports 86.6 percent wired and 8.3 percent satellite, Fernley 75.5 percent and 6.5 percent, and Yerington 65.7 percent and 11.9 percent. Yerington's no-subscription share, 11.0 percent, is the highest of the larger Lyon places and is about twice the Nevada figure (ACS 2020-2024, B28002). Three business pages go with these rows: Fernley, Dayton and Yerington.

A note about the Mound House row

Mound House has no Census place of its own in the ACS pull, so its row uses ZIP 89706 as a stand-in. That ZIP also covers part of Carson City, which is why the row shows 20,478 residents. Read it as a ZIP, not as the unincorporated community.

What is planned in Lyon County?

Nevada's provisional High Speed NV plan lists nine projects in Lyon County, about 6.2 million dollars in all. Hot Spot Broadband holds the largest, Fernley, at about 5.3 million dollars with an estimated end in November 2026, and also Stockton Flat Well, Flowery Peak and Occidental Grade. NV Bell Telephone holds Misfits Flat, Amazon Kuiper holds Fernley East and Parker Butte, and SpaceX holds Dayton Valley and Campbell Ranch (Nevada OSIT BEAD Final Proposal data, read 10/15/26). The list is subject to change, and High Desert is not a subgrantee. See the Lyon County BEAD page.

What does the phone-only share mean?

Lyon's 14.8 percent works out to roughly 3,500 households that report a cellular data plan and no other internet subscription (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, table B28002). That is more than the 2,846 on satellite. A phone plan can do a lot, but video calls, large downloads and several people at once use data quickly, and plans often carry their own limits. Whether a phone plan is enough depends on the household.

High Desert lists three plans at Bronze $50, Silver $75 and Gold $99 a month with up to 500, 800 and 1 Gig down and up to 200 Mbps up, and no contracts (hdiss.net, read 10/15/26). The agreement sets a data transfer limit for each level, sent by email. Ask for the size before you compare.

What reported service in 2021?

The FCC's June 2021 Form 477 filing lists 24 provider and technology lines in Lyon County, including three satellite companies each reported in roughly 4,300 census blocks, Charter cable in 1,537 blocks, and several fixed wireless companies (FCC Form 477, June 2021, historical). The Form 477 page shows every county.

What does the FCC's December 2025 data add for Lyon County?

For Lyon County, the FCC Broadband Data Collection replaces the 2021 Form 477 snapshot with location-level filings. As of December 31, 2025 (files read October 16, 2026), the county has 25,827 broadband serviceable locations. The largest land-based rows: Spectrum, cable, 20,714 locations (top tier up to 1,000 Mbps down); Preferred Networks, unlicensed fixed wireless, 17,028 locations (top tier up to 512 Mbps down); T-Mobile, licensed fixed wireless, 16,839 locations (top tier up to 100 Mbps down); Hot Spot Broadband, unlicensed fixed wireless, 15,898 locations (top tier up to 100 Mbps down); Verizon, licensed fixed wireless, 10,005 locations (top tier up to 300 Mbps down); Ethos Broadband, licensed fixed wireless, 8,642 locations (top tier up to 400 Mbps down).

Lyon County has 25,827 broadband serviceable locations on the December 2025 map, the base for every figure below. Wired filers (cable, fiber and copper) listed 100/20 at 20,949 of them; 10 companies filed fixed wireless there, at 100/20 or better for 25,014. Where only a tower filing offered 100/20 and no wire did, the count was 4,497; separately, 48 had no land-based filing at 25/3 or better, leaving satellite as the only reported option. A location in the Lyon County files is a building or unit where a provider says it could install service, not a household and not a subscriber, so the counts cannot be read as a share of homes.

How do income and age shape the Lyon County numbers?

Two newer Census tables add who is behind the Lyon County subscription numbers. There, 86.1 percent of households earning under $35,000 a year report broadband, against 97.2 percent of those at $75,000 or more (table B28004; Nevada 81.5 percent and 96.6 percent). Among residents 65 and over, 91.1 percent live in a home with broadband and 5 percent live in a home with no computer (table B28005; Nevada 88.1 percent and 5.7 percent). Housing built in 2010 or later is 13.3 percent of units, and housing from before 1990 34.4 percent (table B25034). All Lyon County figures are from the Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, pulled October 16, 2026.

Method

Figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates (tables B28002, B28001, B08301, B25024, B01001 and B19013), retrieved 2026-10-02, and from County and ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023. They are survey estimates with margins of error. Places under about 2,000 people are rounded to whole percents and read as about; a 0 or 100 percent for a tiny place is left out as a sampling artifact. The ACS has no fixed wireless line, so a household on a tower link is counted under cable, fiber or DSL or under other service. The ACS asks about subscriptions, not about whether a provider could serve the address.