The city will team up with Middletown and Portsmouth to put together an application to the state for broadband infrastructure funding.
“We’ll be presenting to the City Council pretty soon a recommendation to hire a consultant to assist us with middle-mile issues,” said City Manager Joseph J. Nicholson Jr. “Parallel to that is the state’s completion of a mapping plan for broadband.”
Middle-mile networks are the connections from national and major regional internet backbones to local broadband networks. Nicholson was discussing a possible multi-million dollar investment in Aquidneck Island’s broadband network during a City Council workshop held Saturday morning.
Present for the discussion were state senators Dawn Euer and Lou DiPalma and state representatives Marvin Abney (D-Newport, Middletown) and Lauren Carson (D-Newport). They discussed a series of projects the city could be undertaking in the coming years.