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Monticello FiberNet Attempts to Adapt Business Plan

Tue, November 22, 2011 | Posted by christopher

Monticello, a small community of 13,000 about 40 miles northwest of Minneapolis, built one of the most advanced broadband networks in the midwest and delivers some of the fastest connections available in the state at incredibly competitive rates. The Twin Cities metro area, stuck mostly with Comcast and Qwest, cannot compare in capacity or value.

Monticello is fairly rare in the publicly owned FTTH region because it does not have a public power utility and services on the network are provided by a third party, Hiawatha Broadband Communications -- a Minnesota company with an excellent reputation and track record.

Unfortunately, Monticello's network suffered costly delays due to a frivolous lawsuit filed by the incumbent phone company in a bid to bleed the publicly owned network while it suddenly invested in its own second generation network (that it previously maintained was totally unnecessary for a small town like Monticello).

Monticello lost a full year on the project, which has hurt its finances significantly. More unexpectedly, it has become the only community in North America where all residents have a choice between FTTH networks. They also have Charter in the mix. Add to this the economic downturn that hit just after they financed the network in 2007 -- the population growth has been much lower than forecast. The predictable result? Much lower prices, lots of community savings, and a publicly owned network that is behind its projections.

The local paper recently ran a story about the project, "FiberNet struggles in a sea of red. Should you read the full piece, please be aware that the inaptly named "Freedom Foundation" has no credibility, existing solely to defend massive corporations like cable and telephone companies.

For those who wonder why incumbents filed absurd lawsuits that have a vanishingly small chance of winning, note this discussion from the story:

“It stopped us from really building the system by about a year,” said Finance Director Tom Kelly, “which put our revenue collections about a year behind. Obviously if you don’t have a system, you can’t bill people for it.”

“The delay has created a substantial impact in our ability to cash flow because money had to be spent paying for costs related to the lawsuit,” added O’Neill.

At the same time, Kelly said, they still had to make interest payments on their bonds, leaving them with expenses but no revenue source. He said if the city had pushed its business plan back about a year, they actually would be ahead of the game from a revenue standpoint. From an expenditure standpoint he said they would still be behind. This is happening, he said, because of the added cost the city incurred when it tried to build the system in 18 months versus the two to three years it had planned on before the lawsuit.

The City operates a municipally owned liquor store and is using proceeds from that fund to cover shortfalls in FiberNet currently. In time, they plan for FiberNet to get back on its feet and repay the liquor loans. Should the problems continue, Monticello will have to make a choice. It issued non-recourse revenue bonds, meaning the City has no obligation to cover shortfalls. However, there are credit implications of that decision.

FiberNet Monticello

In 2007, voters overwhelmingly supported the network with a 74% yes referendum vote. Unfortunately, people often have short memories when they suddenly see all the prices in the market drop and billboards advertising a free TV for those who switch away from the publicly owned network.

In response to the story, and more generally, the less enthusiastic response to the network than was demonstrated in the referendum, Mayor Clint Herbst published an op-ed in which he notes that they followed the will of the people and TDS sued the town, disrupting their plan.

He finishes strongly, with a personal example as the owner of a video rental store:

Those operating dollars were counted on to get this system past its first couple of years. Anyone that has started a business knows that the first couple of years are critical. In FiberNet’s case, many dollars have to be expended to get the system in place before revenues can be realized. Our business plan showed that it would be close to dipping into the red as our expenditure exceeded our revenue and that is why we needed the full $26 million - not the $20 plus million left after our battles in court.

The whole idea behind this system has been to bring in some competition and it has been a successful mission. Monticello has gone from paying some of the highest rates in the nation with miserably slow speeds, to some of the lowest rates in the nation with the highest speeds available. FiberNet will not be sending your dollars out of the city or even the state. We will keep those dollars local and when the bond is paid off, those dollars will go back into our parks, programs, aid in lowering the levy and so on. FiberNet cannot compete with the predatory pricing that others use. We are charging a fair price for great service and a top-of-the-line system. Others have come in to offer great deals at prices that are designed to put your company out of business. It is no different than what Netflix and Red Box did to the video stores. Now that the video stores are out of business, the prices have started and will continue to increase. You are fooling yourself if you think it will be any different in the telecommunication industry.

People have to make adult choices. They city chose to build a publicly owned network that significantly lowered prices by all competitors in the market (if not list prices, the competition has increased the use of promotional discounts). If people choose to then turn their backs on the network, that is their decision. But they should not fault elected officials if the network fails to break even. The community will likely have gained on net -- the lower prices everyone pays keep real money in the community that almost certainly adds up to more than the unpaid debt of the network. But complaining about government is a far easier exercise than a full evaluation of the fiber-optic network.

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Despite Delays, Dunnellon Builds Muni Fiber in Florida

Thu, November 17, 2011 | Posted by christopher

Dunnellon, a small town in Marion County south of Gainesville, decided to invest in a community fiber network to spur growth and diversify its income stream. Though citizens did not want to cut government services, they have not been pleased at property tax increases.

364 days ago, we published a story discussing their financing.

The town itself is quite small, with 1,733 residents but the network will be serving areas in the County as well. Though AT&T and Comcast offer services in the area, they have big gaps in coverage and apparently the cable television packages are antiquated (only 50 channels???).

An article last year noted Dunnellon's Internet connections will range from 10Mbps to 125Mbps. They hope to sign up 1,647 subscribers within 6 months of launch -- the network is named Greenlight (not sure if they were aware that the city of Wilson, NC, already operates a triple-play FTTH network called Greenlight).

They hoped to launch 6 months ago. Bill Thompson's "Dunnellon dreams of a connectied future," offers a comprehensive look at the promise and the challenges Dunnellon faces.

Dunnellon's city manager comes from Valparaiso, which had a city-owned cable network that upgraded to FTTH. Unfortunately, Dunnellon is in the hard position of building a network from scratch.

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Building a new network requires a massive up-front capital investment - in this case the city will have spent $4.4 million to connect the first connection. Good thing they aren't all that expensive!

The article identifies two main sources of the delays: difficulty in getting on the poles owned by Progress Energy and long delays in receiving the fiber-optic cable they ordered (stimulus projects have hogged the supply). Rather than taking 12 weeks, they had to wait 30. Delays cause problems:

The installation delay has put the city in a pinch with its lender, Regions Bank. The city was scheduled in November to pay back about half of the $1.85 million, one-year note it had spent so far.

But with no customers, the city will not be able to do so on time, Algiere said.

She expects the bank to agree to restructure the loan and grant a one-year delay, at the end of which the city will pay the full amount.

The other two loans were to be paid off in five years and 15 years, respectively.

They network will connect schools and muni buildings first -- other subscribers should be able to sign up before the end of the year.

Like so many other communities, many in Dunnellon appear to be looking at Lafayette for inspiration. I certainly hope Dunnellon can get a similar level of citizen engagement, but few have been able to duplicate the impressive work of Lafayette in that regard.

Link: 
Keep up with Dunnellon's Greenlight on Facebook
Link: 
Dunnellon's Greenlight on Twitter
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EC Fiber is Officially Live in Vermont

Wed, August 24, 2011 | Posted by christopher

This has been a great month for communities building their own high capacity broadband networks in New England. Wired West in rural Massachusetts has formalized its coop of communities. Just last Friday, we wrote about the East Central Vermont Community Fiber network in beta. As of last night, EC Fiber is out of beta and officially live! Those interested can sign up at MyECFiber.net. Last night, they issued this press release:

SOUTH ROYALTON – Having completed its beta testing, and with the Phase I project nearly complete, ECFiber began connecting its first customers today. Eight customers have been beta-testing the system for the past two weeks, getting sustained 5Mbps symmetrical service.

The Barnard General Store, one of the beta sites, has been offering the experience to customers via WI-FI, and has been finding folks on their doorstep at all hours, trying out the system.

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“It’s been amazing,” says Kim Furlong, one of the store’s proprietors. “Because so much more of what we do is online, it is truly a joy to reap the reward of high-speed internet. Dial-up, and even satellite, is such a time-robber. Fiber is very different – you can be more efficient, and that is exciting. At the same time, I have some trepidation. People are going to relocate here more permanently because of what is available, and that is probably going to change the fabric of the community.”

According to Project Coordinator Leslie Nulty, 15 new accounts were opened within the first 24 hours after the doorstep delivery of information packets. Barnard Academy, another beta site, is also very excited about the service. They are planning an open house and community celebration of ECFiber’s arrival in mid-October.

Barnard was chosen for the Phase I project because of its proximity to the central office and its large number of unserved users. Pre-registrations topped 90% before the project started. Phase II, to build out the rest of the town of Barnard, is in the planning stages, with an informational meeting set for Thursday night at 7PM at the Barnard Town Hall.

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EC Fiber Starts Connecting Rural Vermont to Internet

Fri, August 19, 2011 | Posted by christopher

The East Central Vermont Fiber-to-the-Home network is officially connecting people. This has been a fascinating project to watch, though undoubtedly frustrating from the thousands of people who just want a fast, affordable, and reliable connection to the Internet (though any one of the three would be an improvement for them).

They started trying to finance the network when the markets weren't interested in even lending water to Jesus. They seemed a lock for stimulus funding but that money instead when to a wireless project. The state begged them to apply for Vermont Telecom Authority broadband funds and then slammed the door when they complied. All in the shadow of Burlington Telecom. So they did what they now say they should have done from the start: financed it themselves.

They organized and came up with $1 million locally to start the project. In July, they announced Barnard Vermont would get connected first.

And now they are starting to turn those connections on. And regularly updating their blog, something I love to see! As of yesterday, they had 7 beta connections going and were planning to add 2 more. 3 in 4 of those asked if they want drops installed have already said yes.

We look forward to tracking their progress.

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Wired West to Incorporate Next Week

Tue, August 09, 2011 | Posted by christopher

Very good news continues to come from Wired West. From a press release:

August 13th will be a historic occasion for many Western Massachusetts towns, as they form a joint cooperative to build and operate a state-of-the-art telecommunications network for residents and businesses. Founding member towns have traditionally been unserved or underserved by existing broadband providers. The new Cooperative, called WiredWest, will create a community-owned network offering high quality internet, phone and television services to member towns.

Today, most WiredWest towns have only partial coverage from limited-bandwidth broadband technologies. WiredWest's goal is not only to create fair access to broadband for all member town residents, but also to provide very high-quality services on a reliable, state-of-the-art network that will meet the escalating bandwidth requirements of businesses and home owners, and provide enough capacity for many decades.

The proposed WiredWest network will connect to the Massachusetts Broadband Institute's middle-mile fiber-optic infrastructure to create a robust network from end to end.

Twenty-three Western Massachusetts towns have taken the necessary steps to join the WiredWest co-operative by passing votes in two consecutive town meetings. Seventeen additional towns are in the process of voting and are expected to join the Cooperative over the next year. A map of WiredWest towns and their progress can be viewed on the WiredWest website.

The WiredWest Cooperative is utilizing "Municipal Light Plant" legislation, initially drafted in 1906, when rural towns faced a similar crisis of access to fundamental services from a lack of electricity. In 1996, the provision of telecommunications services was added to the statute, which enables municipalities to build and operate broadband services in the Commonwealth.

The leadership team and working groups are focused on finalizing a business plan, putting financing together and early network planning. The group recently received a $50,000 planning grant from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, and has also raised additional funding from local businesses and individuals to assist with start-up requirements.

The incorporation will take place in Cummington, a town in the geographic center of WiredWest's territory.

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Daily Yonder on Wired West Massachusetts Towns

Sat, July 23, 2011 | Posted by christopher
Publication Date: 
July 6, 2011
Author(s): 
Craig Settles
Publication Title: 
Daily Yonder

We have long followed the efforts of rural communities in western Massachusetts to form the Wired West network. They will soon wrap up the town meeting season and have a sense of how many local towns are a part of the initial project. But if you aren't already familiar with the project, the Daily Yonder offers a background article.

Midway through the broadband stimulus program in early 2010, several western Massachusetts towns recognized this danger and decided to form WiredWest to take matters into their own hands. These communities believe “control of the network needs to stay in the hands of the community,” states Co-Chair and spokesperson Monica Webb, of Monterey, MA. “Private providers just cherry pick the best subscribers and offer empty promises to the rest of us.”

…

WiredWest structured itself legally as a "cooperative of municipal light plants," a designation created by a 100-year-old law that enabled towns to distribute their own electricity. This designation allows towns to own telecom services within existing legislative guidelines and use municipal bonds to fund the network, and it grants individuals and businesses tax deductions when they donate to WiredWest. WiredWest also can provide Internet access service without being required to provide cable TV services. Hilltown Community Dev Corp. is a second community co-op in the area and it is designated as a fiduciary able to apply for grants on WiredWest’s behalf. Once WiredWest officially launches this month, it will have the legal authority to apply for grants, contract with providers, and take other actions.

WiredWest early on took stock of its needs, learning how to recruit additional towns to join the coalition. “Of the 47 towns now in WiredWest, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Comcast are only in seven,” says Webb. “There are two or three WISPs, (wireless Internet service providers) but getting coverage into many places requires lots of towers and repeaters that makes this option expensive. Some towns can make the coverage-to-cost work, but others tried to no avail.”

Link: 
Massachusetts Towns (Broad)Band Together
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Business Interest in Cortez Muni Network Exceeds Expectations

Wed, June 29, 2011 | Posted by christopher

Last month, we were excited to write about the open access network in Cortez, Colorado. We can update the story with information from this article:

[B]usiness participation on Cortez's own municipal fiber-optic network has exceeded expectations - with 76 drops purchased to connect 98 Cortez businesses to the network.

Rick Smith, director of the city's General Services Department, said crews are working to get the drops connected and to extend conduit to the west side of Broadway Street.

"(The demand) exceeded my expectations," he said. "It's a good problem to have. ... I think the business owners see the value in being connected to the fiber for the long-term future. I think they see it as a way to stay competitive and enhance their business."

These businesses could start using the network in July but no service provider has yet committed to providing services. When the network is ready, there is no doubt at least one will take advantage of the community network to offer next-generation services. Over time, as more subscribers are available, more service providers will want to compete for their attention.

"It's going to give us an advantage that other communities don't have," Smith said. "You've got communities starting to take notice of what Cortez is doing, and it's exciting."

Businesses interested in joining the network can purchase "drops" to physically connect to the fiber-optic line. Drops currently cost a one-time fee of $150 for a small business or home and $175 for a medium business. Other rates are available for large businesses and multi-unit buildings.

But drops are only available in a limited area of town along Main Street currently. As the network generates more revenues, it will expand to other areas of the community.

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Idaho Town Builds Incremental, Open Access Network

Tue, May 17, 2011 | Posted by christopher

A small Idaho town near Idaho Falls in the eastern part of the state, Ammon, is creating a new approach for a small open access fiber-optic network. When the vision is fully realized, all businesses and residents will have affordable, fast, and reliable access to the Internet and other telecommunications services via a multitude of independent service providers.

The town has adopted a new ordinance spelling out its vision and began building the backbone of the network. The purpose is well written and could serve as a model for others, excerpted here:

To protect the public right-of-way by improving both the management and regulation of competing demands through the elimination of duplicate fiber optic facilities within the public right-of-way.

…

To reduce the cost of maintaining the sidewalk, pavement and public facilities located within the public right-of-way by minimizing the number of pavement cuts and dislocation of other public facilities necessitated by the construction or installation of fiber optic facilities.

To foster competition among retail broadband service providers by providing open Access to the City Fiber Optic System.

Ammon had previously applied for broadband stimulus funds but was not awarded a grant or loan. Undaunted, they continued to examine how they can build the network their community needs to attract economic development and maintain a high qualify of life. An article in the Boise Weekly profiled the network and the man behind it:

Bruce Patterson is the one-man IT department for Ammon, a small town of 13,000 near Idaho Falls. He is fed up with companies overlooking the town when they discover the cost of Internet is prohibitive.

…

"The City of Ammon wants to be the road, not the traffic," Patterson said. "Nondiscrimination is what we believe is the right thing. We wanna be completely open to every consumer and provider."

As we see time and time again, this community has Internet access from at least one provider, but it does not meet the needs of the community. And while this community wants more choices, it does not want local government to offer retail services directly -- in keeping with the western libertarian stereotype. So the town has started building a network that will be available to independent service providers.

open-access-flickr.jpg

In keeping with several other recent open access approaches, they have started an incremental effort to avoid the difficulty of growing too fast in an effort to meet debt payment schedules. The network started with a short stretch that will be expanded opportunistically -- as roads are already open or other projects present a low-cost option for increasing its reach. As much as possible, they plan to finance the network up front.

Interestingly, they want to deliver multiple fibers to the edge of the network. As a business or resident, I would be able to subscribe to multiple service providers, each over their own dedicated fiber. While some may argue such an approach is unnecessary, it certainly leaves plenty of room for future growth no matter how technology changes -- and the additional cost is quite low when that is now the network is designed from the start.

The following explanation comes from the City's newsletter:

On Friday, May 6th, the City lit the first 2.5 mile section of its new City-owned and operated fiber optic system and quietly took its first steps towards fulfilling a commitment made over 2 years ago to assure that broadband services in our community meet our needs, are competitive and provide the broadband access that our vision of the future will require.

The City fiber system is a local private network spanning numerous locations within the City. This has become necessary due to increasing demand for network communications required to support essential City services and functions. The City stands to realize a return on its investment in the reduction of monthly operational costs and improved ability to provide for future services at almost no additional expense. However, while this financial reality is reason enough for us to invest in a community network; it is not the only benefit we expect to realize.

The Ammon fiber system will be operated as an open access network for the benefit of the entire community. We expect the early beneficiaries of this ‘open’ policy commitment to be community anchor institutions, such as law enforcement, public safety, emergency responders, and our local schools. We are already working to help a number of these agencies meet their broadband needs. It is our hope that creating this open network will also entice businesses which require robust and affordable broadband services to consider settling their operation in Ammon. We also anticipate being able to give you, the Ammon residents, more choices in broadband services and providers and at better rates and much faster speeds than currently available through fiber technology.

These are the many reasons why the City of Ammon will soon own and operate its very own fiber optic, open access community network. The result will be a win – win for everyone.

Update: The article quoted above from the newsletter should be credited to Brian Powell of the City Council.

Photo used under creative commons license, courtesy of Gideon Burton on Flickr

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Lake County, National Public Broadband, Go Separate Ways

Wed, February 09, 2011 | Posted by christopher

For two years, National Public Broadband (led by Gary Fields and Tim Nulty) has worked with Lake County, Minnesota, to build a universal rural FTTH broadband network to everyone in the County and some nearby towns in Saint Louis County. Toward the end of 2010, the relationship became somewhat tense as some county commissioners questioned what NPB had told them about Burlington Telecom, and a number of media outlets raised questions about Nulty's relationship to BT's problems without actually investigating the story.

Now the Lake County News-Chronicle (which, over the course of this story, has taken the time to report facts rather than following the lazy lead of the Star Tribune and Duluth News Tribune), reports that Lake County and National Public Broadband are kaput. Lake County is seeking a new partner to build the project.

Lake County could not reach agreement on a permanent contract with National Public Broadband, its consultant firm for nearly two years. The two sides battled for nearly two months and couldn’t solve issues based on bonus payments and the ability for the county to fire NPB without cause and without penalty. The negotiations had bogged down work on the actual project, Commissioner Paul Bergman said, and the board wanted a fresh start.

Additionally, due to the state of financial markets, the County is planning to self-fund the $3.5 million local obligation required to access to the broadband stimulus award. Lake County hoped to bond for the matching funds but the current interest rates make that an fiscally unwise approach.

While this does not change the project, it will change the perception of the project and open it to increased attacks from those who don't want the County to build a network (despite the fact that private providers have no interest in providing anything other than slow DSL and cable networks).

The County had long maintained that no public money would be used. However, most people will likely not care as long as the project keeps its promise to deliver fast, reliable, and affordable broadband to the community. This is the need -- and people need to stay focused on achieving this goal.

At a commissioner meeting in late December, Gary Fields commented to the Board that they had to have trust in NPB if the project was going to work. It is hard to know without being at most of the previous meetings, but I suspect the problem came as a result of NPB being nuanced about Burlington Telecom (until late 2009, no one knew how badly the post-Nulty management had hurt BT). Some of the Commissioners apparently interpreted BT as an unqualified success and felt misled when they learned of BT's present problems.

Regardless of who was at fault (and to what degree), Fields was correct. These projects are necessary but still damn hard to build. There will be a lot of stress and it is better for NPB and Lake County to split now if they cannot heal the past. Otherwise, the inevitable bumps in the road of the project (that will occur no matter who builds the networks), would likely just open old wounds and hurt the project. The project needs to have the strong support (and unwavering oversight) of the community, particularly as incumbent providers (ahem, Mediacom) look for any weakness to derail the potential for residents to have actual choices in telecommunications services.

National Public Broadband should be credited with bringing the stimulus award to Lake County -- now it is on Lake County to follow through and make the project work. No one builds these networks because it is easy -- they build them because the future of the region requires fast, affordable, and reliable broadband.

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EC Fiber Pilot Project Exceeds Financing Goals

Mon, January 31, 2011 | Posted by christopher

Update: We have covered the second round of financing from ECFiber here.

The East Central Vermont Fiber Network, connecting some 23 rural towns, announced back in July that they would self finance a pilot project as a preliminary step to securing the full funding for the project.

Right around Thanksgiving, last year, David Brown updated the community on progress via an article in the Vermont Standard:

It would have been terrific to get the $50million needed to build out all 35,000 telephone and electric poles with 1,500 miles of fiber optic cable. Along the way, we learned an important lesson. We noticed that government money went to existing telephone companies to expand existing networks rather than funding start-ups like ours. That’s when the ECFibernauts decided on a change in strategy: build a small network, get a few real customers, and deliver rock-solid ultra-fast Internet to them as a proof of concept – all using our own money. Then, when all the critical components are up and running, go to the commercial markets for funding needed to expand out to all 23 towns.

The ECFiber Governing Board and our technology partners ValleyNet, Inc. are fortunate to have several experienced financiers within our ranks. Working with our attorneys (to keep everything legal) ECFiber is reaching out to the community with a private offering of tax-exempt promissory notes. As of this writing, we have raised more than three-quarters of what is needed to complete Phase I of our project. The ECFiber hub is now under construction on Waterman Road in Royalton and an initial pole attachment application for 500 poles is being processed. Phase I will bring ECFiber service to selected businesses, schools, town facilities and residents in Bethel, Barnard, Stockbridge and Royalton.

This is a commitment that few other communities have made -- self-financing a start up portion. It is actually quite inspiring, though one quickly grasps the huge need from the stories EC Fiber has collected. Any community hoping to organize a network should copy this EC Fiber page. With a simple form, you can documents hundreds of individual stories of people who want better broadband.

Consider what Cynthia in Norwich contributed:

I live in a remote part of Norwich with little population but much need. I am an artist and photographer, mostly working at home. Due to some health issues, I am not always able to go somewhere else to access high-speed internet, nor is it convenient to do so. I have to drive 6-8 miles to the nearest library, and can only take a small laptop which doesn't have all the information to run my business. I have a web site (www.creaturekinships.com) which takes forever, on flaky dial-up to revise, and downloading updates and security measures can take hours. Since I work with art and photography and am a moderator on a photography web site (NatureScapes.net), I can't do my work efficiently as it also takes several minutes to get images...IF the phone line doesn't crash while downloading (which it often does.) I typically need to look at and comment on 5-15 images a day. I would be looking at more like 20-30 images if I could.

EC Fiber had applied to the Vermont Telecommunications Authority for a $4.2 million grant to build the backbone of the network and connect a number of community anchor institutions as well as some 800 homes in the most rural and least competitive areas.

In a plea for supporters to write the VTA and other officials in support of the project, Ian Stewart described local hardships:

I understand the Vermont Law School has experienced an uptick in potential students opting not to attend VLS because they can’t get broadband access from their rented accommodations. Beside renting apartments, these temporary Vermonters bring much needed revenue to our local businesses and contribute to the daily lives of our communities. We all lose every time a VLS applicant withdraws his candidacy.

Even if VTA wanted to prioritize funding for ECFiber, its hands are limited by the law, which limits where VTA can fund:

The RUS award was great news to VTel shareholders, but it stopped dead in its tracks any plans the VTA may have had to help other organizations bring high speed internet service to rural Vermont. The Vermont legislature passed a bill with language that prohibits the VTA from funding telecom development in any area where another entity has a “legally binding commitment” to make telecom investments. That includes VTel’s award and Fairpoint’s DSL build-out commitments. The language effectively poisoned the waters for anyone else seeking VTA funding, including ECFiber’s efforts to bring ultra high speed Internet to 23 area towns.

This is a failure to distinguish between broadband as infrastructure (wireline) and broadband as stopgap (wireless). Nonetheless, ECFiber does qualify for some funds under the "Backroads Broadband Program" for middle mile and the most unserved households. The end of this article in the Vermont Standard is a call to action for people to contact the VTA.

Regardless of the VTA funding, EC FIber is moving forward on its pilot:

At ECFiber’s November Governing Board meeting, ValleyNet staff reported that the Phase I fiber-optic network build has begun with the first round of pole surveys conducted with Fairpoint and CVPS, as required by regulation.

As of Jan 6, had raised $907,500 from the community for the first phase, exceeding their goal.

ECFiber Governing Board Chair Loredo Sola of North Pomfret said, "This is a very important and hard-fought first step. Phase I establishes a baseline for building and operating cost, build time, expected market penetration, and resulting revenue. That baseline gives ECFiber a solid platform on which to build its network to all twenty-three ECFiber member towns."

"More importantly," said Sola, "this community-raised financing demonstrates confidence in a community-owned and managed network as well as frustration that public and private promises to bring us broadband have fallen way short. Here's an example in true Vermont tradition of communities stepping up and taking charge."

As it moves forward, it moves out of the shadow of Burlington Telecom's problems -- though detractors will undoubtedly continue to try to tie them together.

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