No bridge. No power. Slow internet. Is the East Bay an infrastructure wasteland?

It's easier to look past a slow internet connection when you can see Narragansett Bay sparkling outside your living room and hear the clink of sailboat rigging in the distance. Maybe that's why some residents of Rhode Island's East Bay and Newport County have put up with broadband infrastructure the state says doesn't stack up to what's available in the more dense areas north and west. And it's not just internet. Electricity, natural gas and now—with the Washington Bridge fiasco—roads, all have a history of unreliability on the islands and peninsulas tucked between the Bay and southeastern Massachusetts. Now, at least as far as broadband infrastructure is concerned, federal help appears to be on its way, but a lawsuit filed by Cox Communications in September argues that the relief is misplaced.