Rhode Island Bill Would Lay Groundwork for Broadband Regulatory Agency
A state bill introduced Friday would give Rhode Island's Commerce Corporation a one-year deadline to submit a plan to the governor and General Assembly for creating a state broadband regulatory authority. Under SB-2014, which was referred to the state Senate Commerce Committee, the regulatory authority would have oversight of "broadband planning, deployment, service quality, consumer protections, and equitable access."
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The bill also would require that ISPs providing service in Rhode Island submit data to the Commerce Corporation to support maintenance of a statewide, publicly accessible broadband map. The agency would publish the map Dec. 1, 2026, and annually thereafter, with detailed information on broadband availability, speeds, transmission technology and adoption rates. In addition, the legislation would require ISPs to report any outage that affects 100 or more customers or lasts four or more hours to the Commerce Corporation within 48 hours of the occurrence. The corporation would need to issue a summary of outage data annually on its website.