High-speed internet access only matters when you have the devices and knowledge to use it.
Which is why the Biden administration is giving $4.5 million to Rhode Island to help bridge the digital divide for its most vulnerable residents, including seniors, racial and ethnic minorities, and those in rural areas. The funding announced in a virtual press conference on Wednesday morning comes from a $1.44 billion federal grant program – one of three created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – aimed at helping improve internet access and literacy nationwide.
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“The Internet has become the essential tool for communications in our modern world,” Alan Davidson, assistant secretary of commerce and administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said in a Zoom call with reporters. “And yet, here we are today in 2024, and there are still thousands of families in Rhode Island, and millions of people across the country who still lack access to high-speed internet connections, or lack the tools or the skills or the means to use it.”
The new federal funding is separate from NTIA’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, which funneled $108 million to the Ocean State in July to improve broadband access infrastructure. The equity grant program instead focuses on training, skills and partnerships with institutions that help underserved demographic groups to take advantage of high-speed internet access. Funding has been doled out on a rolling basis, with all eligible states and territories expected to receive their awards within the next six weeks, Davidson said.
In Rhode Island, the money will be spent in a five-pronged approach, outlined in the 203-page state digital equity plan formally adopted in March. The plan acknowledges that while Rhode Island enjoys better broadband access than other states, its residents – particularly those in low-income and rural communities, along with people of color, seniors, veterans and those with disabilities – don’t have the devices or skills to use the internet to its full potential.
For example, 11% of Rhode Island residents surveyed in 2021 relied on a smartphone as their sole way to access the internet, according to data included in the report. Meanwhile, more than four in 10 adults who take job training, English language, citizenship, and other classes through the R.I. Department of Education don’t have a device to participate in remote learning.
The federal funding, which will be administered by R.I. Commerce Corp. as the state broadband coordinator, will pay for free training, technical assistance, and devices for these target groups, while helping improve partnerships with libraries, universities and other institutions that offer public internet access.
“This is a real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” R.I. Commerce Corp. Secretary Liz Tanner said.
Both Tanner and Davidson remained optimistic that the “Internet for All” initiative started by the Biden-Harris administration would survive the incoming presidential administration.
“We’re full steam ahead,” Tanner said.
Meanwhile, a legal challenge to the separate but tangential, federally-funded broadband access plan remains unsettled. Cox Communications first challenged the accuracy of the maps used to create the state broadband plan in a lawsuit filed in Providence County Superior Court in September. A Providence County Superior Court judge dismissed the complaint in November, ruling it was better-suited to federal court. Cox appealed the decision on Monday, asking the Rhode Island Supreme Court to consider its case, according to court documents.
The state’s highest court has not weighed in as of Wednesday.
Rhode Island Commerce acknowledged, but did not immediately provide a response when asked for comment about the appeal on Wednesday.
Nancy Lavin is a staff writer for the Rhode Island Current.
