Rhode Island racing to be first e-state
BYLINE: Terri Hallenbeck Contact Terri Hallenbeck at 229-4126 or thallenb@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
MONTPELIER -- Will Vermont be the first state to have border to border high-speed Internet? That was the pitch Gov. Jim Douglas made in January. That's the goal of a bill the Legislature is on the brink of passing.
It's also a goal in Rhode Island and a few other states.
"The race is on," said Stuart Freiman, manager of Innovation Programs with the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp.
This is a race that Alaska and Texas might be conceding by virtue of their size. Smaller states, however, are onto the idea. Kentucky and South Carolina are working toward border-to-border coverage. South Carolina's notion is to be the first state to provide free wireless broadband.
Rhode Island might just have an edge. The Ocean State is the nation's smallest state, is flat and is fairly densely populated. That makes it more conducive to the rapid spread of technology. It lacks the mountains Vermont has that stand in the way of electromagnetic waves. Nor does it have to contend with the rural expanses where cable television is a distant notion.
Rhode Island also got off to an earlier start. "We've been on this project for over three years," Freiman said.
His state has gone about the process differently than Vermont has. The effort was initiated by a nonprofit business organization, which installed a pilot program last year then turned to the Legislature this year for help in securing funding to expand the network.
In Vermont, Douglas initiated the idea this year and turned to the Legislature for help in creating a Telecommunications Authority that will bond for $40 million with moral backing from the state.
If Rhode Island legislators help out, the planning work already has been done and the state's broadband plan could be in place in 2008, Freiman said. That's a full two years before Vermont's network is targeted to be complete, a goal that some consider overly optimistic.
Tom Murray, commissioner of Vermont's Department of Information and Innovation, has his eye on what Rhode Island and other states are doing. "I think ours is certainly one of the bolder ones," he said.
Vermont's goal also includes border-to-border cell phone coverage -- not something that is a central part of Rhode Island's plans.
There's another difference. Freiman said some Rhode Island legislators still need convincing that border-to-border broadband is worthwhile. In Vermont, that doesn't seem to be in dispute.
Does anyone really care who reaches the border-to-border goal first?
"I think it matters," Freiman said. So does Murray.
Beyond simple boasting rights, being the first state with border-to-border high-speed Internet offers a state the chance to market that fact to prospective businesses, telecommuters and those looking to test a product where there is full telecommunications access.
Senate Economic Development Committee Chairman Vincent Illuzzi, R-Essex/Orleans, said he's not sure Vermont can win this race, or that it should worry about trying to. The important thing, he said, is to increase coverage for Vermonters.
"We don't have the population and therefore the return on investment to have wall-to-wall coverage," he said. "I think we're going to fill in a lot of the blanks, but whether we're going to go wall to wall, I don't know."
If this is a race, it doesn't bode well for Vermont that Rhode Island has dubbed its program RI-WINs.
Contact Terri Hallenbeck at 229-4126 or thallenb@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Rhode Island
POPULATION: 1,076,189
AREA: 1,044 square miles
PEOPLE PER SQUARE MILE: 1,033
Vermont
POPULATION: 623,050
AREA: 9,249 square miles
PEOPLE PER SQUARE MILE: 65.8
U.S. Census Bureau, 2005