Nearly $150 million in new federal funding for high-speed internet access is coming to Hawaii — a major boost to ongoing efforts to ensure broadband and internet service to households across the state, particularly in rural areas.
President Joe Biden announced Monday that more than $40 billion would be distributed across the country to deliver high-speed internet in places where there’s either no service or service is too slow. The nearly $150 million is Hawaii’s share of the federal funding.
Biden said that high-speed internet is no longer a luxury, but an “absolute necessity,” as he pledged that every household in the nation would have access by 2030 using cables made in the U.S.
“These investments will help all Americans,” he said. “We’re not going to leave anyone behind.”
Hawaii will share in the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, which Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser will strictly be used to provide internet “equity and access” to rural areas.
The announcement came just two months after Hawaii received $115.5 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury toward strengthening the infrastructure of undersea broadband cables for interisland internet connection.
“We need both the infrastructure, and we need to go out into the community and make sure that the rural areas, all of the homes, have internet access,” Luke said.
High-speed internet access is just one way the state can ensure broader access to health care, remote working and educational equity, particularly in rural areas that currently have no internet access at all, Luke said.
“The ideal situation is that we bring lines into every home, but a lot of the times that may not be economically feasible,” Luke said.
Luke is spearheading the state’s internet initiative with the help of Garret Yoshimi, vice president for information technology and chief information officer for the University of Hawaii. Yoshimi said the first priority is ensuring that homes are connected, then moving on to community centers.
“We hope to do both,” Yoshimi said.
With the extra funding, Luke and Yoshimi said that the two initiatives of ensuring internet access and constructing a secure infrastructure are separate but “parallel” endeavors. The work toward both will be done simultaneously, and Yoshimi said unlike the few years needed to construct infrastructure, efforts toward digital literacy can start soon.
“The strengthening and hardening of the undersea cable lines will take several years, but we don’t have several years to wait on the equity portion,” Luke said.
The state will work with the individual counties and community organizations to assess the areas of top priority, Luke said.
“It’s about educational programs, it’s about having access to devices, whether it’s devices in a nearby public area or some kind of partnership with nonprofit organizations or community group to get a lot of access out there,” Luke said.
A $740,000 portion of the anticipated funding will go to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to conduct outreach for the country’s Affordable Connectivity Program, which will be administered by the Hawaii Broadband and Digital Equity Office. The program provides discounts on internet bills to eligible households each month and a one-time discount of up to $100 on laptops, desktop computers or tablets.
Meanwhile, the initial project of connecting all of the islands is underway. Yoshimi said the state recently issued one of two requests for proposals to secure a private partner to address the state’s outdated undersea cable system. He said he hopes the project will be complete in two to three years.
The internet access funding amounts announced Monday depended primarily on the number of unserved locations in each jurisdiction or those locations that lack access to internet download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second and upload speeds of 3 Mbps. Download speeds involve retrieving information from the internet, including streaming movies and TV. Upload speeds determine how fast information travels from a computer to the internet, like sending emails or publishing photos online.
The funding includes more than $1 billion each for 19 states, with remaining states falling below that threshold. Allotments range from $100.7 million for Washington, D.C., to $3.3 billion for Texas.
Yoshimi said he feels a great responsibility to take advantage of this opportunity made possible by the federal government, as the new funding is one portion of $2.8 billion allocated for improvements to Hawaii’s infrastructure, part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Biden in November 2021.
“Never have we had so much shift on broadband and internet capacity. This is something we’ve been talking about for many, many years,” Luke said. “We understand as an island state how fortunate we are to be connected through some sort of internet or broadband service, but we’re just so thankful that the federal government has put so much focus on increasing access to many of our sometimes underserved and unserved areas.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
