The Weighted Connectivity Augmentation Problem (WCAP) asks to augment the edge-connectivity of a graph by adding a min cost edge set among given candidate edges. It is among the most elementary network design problems for which no better-than-2 approximation has been known, whereas 2-approximations can easily be obtained through a variety of well-known techniques. In this talk, I will discuss an approach showing that approximation factors below 2 are achievable for WCAP, ultimately leading to a (1.5+epsilon)-approximation. Our approach is based on a highly structured directed simplification of WCAP with planar optimal solutions. We show how one can successively improve solutions of this directed simplification by moving to mixed solutions, consisting of both directed and undirected edges. These insights can be leveraged in local search and relative greedy strategies, inspired by recent advances on the Weighted Tree Augmentation Problem, to obtain a (1.5+epsilon)-approximation. This is joint work with Vera Traub.