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Rockport Builds Maine’s First Municipal Network

Rockport, a coastal town of just 3,300, became a statewide leader last month by launching Maine’s first municipal broadband network. Offering symmetrical gigabit speeds to businesses and residents, Rockport’s network is a carrier-neutral dark fiber system, with local private provider GWI offering retail services. 

The reach of the network is limited, as it consists of only 1.2 miles of fiber. While only about 70 homes and businesses currently have the option to purchase a connection, GWI offers symmetrical gigabit per second internet access for just $69 per month and the city has left the option open to expand the network in the future.

As noted in a Bloomberg View article on the network, it massively outpaces the only broadband competitor in Rockport, Time Warner Cable. Time Warner also offers a $70 service package, but its download speeds are 20 times slower and its upload speeds 200 times slower.  

The network was the product of a partnership between the town board, GWI, the University of Maine system, and Maine Media Workshops + College. Maine Media is a nonprofit college with 1,500 students learning photography, videography, and other digital media skills, and has a large economic footprint in such a small town.

Students’ coursework requires the storing and sharing of massive files, something that was previously difficult or impossible to accomplish given limited network capacity. Town officials are hoping that the new network will not only allow students to learn more easily, but enable them and others to establish small businesses in town.    

U.S. Senator Angus King, a vocal champion of broadband access, was among the officials on hand last week for the official unveiling ceremony. Speaking to the need for greater internet access, Senator King stated:

“In my opinion it’s exactly like water, it’s exactly like electricity, it is a public utility that is necessary in order for our economy and our country to flourish…We want to work where we live, rather than live where we work."

Gig.U Delivers its Gigabit to Maine

We continue to watch the Gig.U project with interest as some universities are teaming up with providers to deliver gigabit services to selected areas, generally around high tech campuses. One of the first project announcements has come from Orono, Maine. The University of Maine and a private company called GWI are teaming up to bring real broadband to Main Street. The gigabit announcement came on the heels of a major announcement from Time Warner Cable - they are increasing residential speeds in Maine from 8-10 Mbps (or from 15 to 20 Mbps for those speed demons) and doubling their upstream speeds from .5 to 1 Mbps (or from 1 to 2 Mbps for those living in the fast lane). So Orono, which is talking about speeds of 50-1000 times faster, should have quite the advantage. We last heard of GWI due to its involvement in the Three-Ring Binder project that brought middle mile connections throughout the state to start recovering from the long-standing underinvestment from Verizon (now FairPoint). We wrote about FairPoint's attempt to kill competition before it started. Now GWI will be building a gigabit open access network in this community that will offer much faster speeds at much lower prices than incumbent operators do. It is certainly an improvement over the status quo in the short term, as noted by the Bangor Daily News.
“We will plant the first seed in fertile economic soil,” he said.