said by Time4aNAP :

Rhode Island is an ideal market for Wi-Fi deployment. All they need is a single tower to cover the whole state

said by ninjatutle :

The interweb is not a cure-all.

said by qworster :

Rhode Island is dying. Unemployment is rampant there and their housing stock is being priced into the stratosphere by people from Massachusetts who buy there, take the MBTA commuter rail train into Boston every day for work and contribute NOTHING to the economy there. My rent in Providence was $500 dollars a month MORE then I pay here in Mar Vista (Los Angeles). Gas and Electric are much more expensive too-not to mention the 300 dollars a month I was paying for heating oil-and I kept my house at 66 all winter!

Even worse, there's a provential attitude there. I lived in RI for a long time and believe me, The Family Guy DOES represent Rhode Island to a "T"! The average Joe there could care less about 'High Tech'. My wife bought a computer education franchise there (for kids 3-14) and no one there wanted to sign up. They're AFRAID of computers there. Just give me my six pack, HBO and channels 6, 10 and 12 and I'll be fine.....

Don't get me wrong, it's BEAUTIFUL there! But it's also the only place where a twice convicted felon could be mayor of its largest city - TWICE!

In other words, this stall doesn't surprise me. Their network will likely NEVER be built-unless its privately financed. And the chance of that is zero, because if you build it, they will NOT come!

said by qworster :

Buddy Cianci's first conviction was for felony assault. With the help of his chauffeur (a state police employee, by the way), he kidnapped his (ex) wife's lover, burned his arms and legs with cigarettes and beat the crap out of him-putting him in the hospital for almost two weeks! Why Don't YOU get your facts straight? His second felony conviction was for corruption-AFTER he put a "For Sale" sign on the Mayor's office door. Fortunately, they passed a law barring convicted felons from holding office, or he might just well get elected Mayor again-now that he's out of "Club Fed" of course. I understand that Buddy and Brad Bleidt (The radio financial "expert" who stole almost 30 million $$$ from his clients-including almost a half million from his MOTHER) were in a band together there.

All the Massachusetts people have done is raise the prices of housing so high that people who work in Providence can't afford to live there. Yes, people can sell their houses for big bucks...but then they can't afford to buy another one. They wind up living down south or in Bristol County, MA. Don't believe me? RI has been steadily losing population for the past ten years! Numbers don't lie.

Contribute to the economy? I don't think so!
Look at all the stores along Route 44 in Seekonk (Massachusetts)-their parking lots are filled with RI license plates. Same thing along Rte. 1 in Attleboro, MA. Then check out the (almost empty) Providence Place mall, where a couple of stores go out of business every month.

Don't get me wrong, I love Rhode Island. I lived there for twenty years (1979 to 1999) and again from 2005 until just recently. I just don't see much hope there. Providence is now a two tiered city-there's South Providence (the poor ghetto) and the rest of the area (filled with high upper middle class and above). The middle class has been priced out of Providence and its suburbs. Even Pawtucket is getting too expensive to live in.

Verizon used Cranston as their test city for FIOS. That's the only reason it's in RI at all. Providence doesn't have it yet, and it's the state's largest city (and capital).

Cox spends money there because people want Cable TV, and Cox wants to be the telephone company in RI (and can't without overbuilding their Internet connectivity). After all, most people in RI hardly ever go out-except to the "packie" to buy their beer.