During a pandemic Zoom meeting from home, Jennifer Hawkins had a revelation.
The CEO and president of the nonprofit ONE Neighborhood Builders felt guilty for the ease with which her family was able to make the digital transition necessitated by school closures and remote work. They had resources out of reach for the people the organization seeks to serve.
“I saw that I had this incredible privilege,” she said. “They didn’t have the same luxury.”
Hawkins was already hearing stories of parents driving to fast-food parking lots and shopping plazas so their children could access schoolwork. She began exploring ways to bring free Wi-Fi service to the Olneyville section of Providence, where One Neighborhood is headquartered.
While not a techie herself, she was versed in the disparities that made Olneyville an outlier even within Providence, a city lagging behind the rest of Rhode Island in terms of average household income and resources.
At the time in 2020, only 66% of Olneyville households had internet access, compared with the citywide rate of 78%. The median income was $46,250 and over one-third of its children live in poverty, more than twice the statewide average. A quarter of the population is under 18 years old.
After consulting with modern networking experts, including the nonprofit OSHEAN Inc., the partners settled on a so-called “mesh network,” using a group of devices acting as a unified Wi-Fi network with multiple points of connectivity.
They embarked on a fundraising campaign to raise more than $260,000 and developed a heat map to determine optimal locations for access points to cover the greatest number of people with the fewest devices. The network was launched in October 2020.
Today, ONE/NB CONNECTS and its 12 access points and 24 transmitters provide high-speed access to more than two-thirds of Olneyville households, covering 7 million square feet of the neighborhood. There are currently 2,500 unique IP addresses – a numeric designation that identifies its location on the internet – using the service.
There is a growing movement to treat internet service as a basic utility such as electricity or running water.
Sen. Samuel W. Bell, D-Providence, whose district included Olneyville before redistricting, says the state should fund these types of programs and move away from subsidies that siphon money to private corporations.
The stakes are high. R.I. Commerce Corp. is in the planning stages of how to spend over $100 million from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program.
“There is a lot the government can do to bring efficiency and economies of scale,” Bell said. “But it is critical that we make sure those funds go into the hands of people in the communities.”
Free networks similar to Olneyville’s are in the works elsewhere. The Newport Housing Authority installed free broadband Wi-Fi for the 110-unit Donovan Manor in 2021 and is working to add the service to another 600 units across the authority’s properties.
Brian Thorn, director of broadband strategy for R.I. Commerce, says there will be a “multifaceted” approach to connect the unconnected.
There are 2,800 Rhode Island households lacking access to high-speed broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
“The [digital divides] are in places that you may not expect,” Thorn said.
The agency is now conducting statewide mapping and surveying, part of its preparation for a five-year plan being submitted to the federal government in October.
While completely cost-free programs such as the one in Olneyville are “rather unique,” Thorn said, thousands of Rhode Islanders are eligible for programs that would make internet service effectively free, including the federal broadband benefit funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that provides eligible households with a $30 monthly discount and up to $75 for households on qualifying Tribal lands.
But of the 173,369 Rhode Island households eligible, only 35% have enrolled.
“Raising awareness of the program is a major issue,” Thorn said.
That is no surprise to David Marble, OSHEAN’s CEO and president, who says the future rests on a hybrid model between fiber optic, Wi-Fi and cellular.
And Marble expects internet providers to continue to fight for their place in a market that provides them with between 40% and 50% gross profit margins, despite a history of leaving large swaths of the state without reliable service.
“I don’t begrudge them. They are in business to make money. They’ll continue to say, ‘We’ve got this covered,’ but that’s not true if you are on the third floor of a tenement building and that building doesn’t have wiring to get it there,” Marble said.
Hawkins says ONE Neighborhood Builders continues to foot the approximately $65,000 annual bill to maintain its network. She says the purpose was to provide a “proof of concept” but hopes that municipalities and state officials eventually take the reins.
“We don’t want to be internet service providers for the rest of our lives,” she said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect amount for the annual cost to maintain ONE Neighborhood Builders' network.
