The Spigot Of Federal Broadband Funding Is About To Open For Hawaii … Is the state ready for a “once-in-a-lifetime” investment of federal funding to improve broadband access and service?
Hawaii historically has not had access to gobs of money to expand access to broadband or upgrade service, so the volume of federal pandemic funding now headed into the state for broadband projects is nothing short of astounding.
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands alone is expecting about $90 million in federal funds to deliver more and better broadband access to Hawaiians, and more than double that amount is earmarked for the rest of the state.
To put that in context, the only program to award broadband funding grants today was created by the Legislature just this year, and the appropriation for that federally funded initiative was only $5 million. Gov. David Ige has not yet released the funding for that effort.
