Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to all state residents

Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by nekbroadband on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @10:00AM (#23234930)

Hi there, I'm a part of this effort and we did learn from the Burlington Telecom fiasco. Legislation was passed in 2014 that provided for the forming of Communications Union Districts which can build municipally controlled broadband infrastructure, but can't access the municipal bond market, meaning taxpayers are never at risk. The downside of this is we have to rely on federal funding in most cases since private capital wants to make sure they have the option to take it out on the taxpayer if the debt load becomes unserviceable. Right now this is not an issue at all for us with hundreds of millions of stimulus money specifically for broadband floating around, the challenge is beating Comcast et al to the money bin. Comcast in particular is pure evil in Vermont, they signed a contract to build out a paltry 550 miles of new cable to unserved addresses over 10 years (55 miles a year) and then sued the state afterwards for infringing on their 1st amendment rights.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/comcast-sues-ver...

I'm with one of the largest CUDs in VT, NEK Community Broadband, which represents 27 towns in the northeast of the state. We're talking to our state government as we speak to make sure incumbent providers are held accountable if they are provided with federal money, and preferably, build our own infrastructure. The timeline for this has shrunk from 3-5 years, to 8 MONTHS by restrictions imposed on spending CARES act and other federal dollars by Jan 1. It's an exciting time!

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by vtthrowaway2519 on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @10:20AM (#23235137)

How do these munibroadband efforts dovetail with existing local fiber companies? I get access through Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom and after granted a long delay on speeds they've been pretty aggressive about fiber rollouts in the last year or two. I'm down by Monkton and have 1G fiber. It's $105 a month, which is certainly more than BTV but this isn't a dense area at all either, and even when still on DSL they've always been really pleasant to deal with. I know there have been other fiber deployments in various places one might not expect at first glance in VT too, and the mountainous terrain is both an impediment to physical rollout but also offers some opportunities for WISPs.

Definitely excited to see more progress on this at last, and Comcast is certainly awful. I hope though that'll it'll benefit from and get boosted by what is here too.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by nekbroadband on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @11:21AM (#23235815)

Very much so. We're looking at EC Fiber as a model of what a successful CUD looks like, and also talking to local electric distribution utilities who have unused fiber assets that we can license from them for residential use. Wireless we are very wary of here, as it is both weather and terrain dependent and provides poor speeds (usually around 14-20m) and one of the larger wireless internet providers, VTel, squandered a USDA rural broadband grant a few years ago and effectively locked the northeast region of the state out of further funding from that program.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by vtthrowaway2519 on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @11:49AM (#23236184)

Fair enough and thanks for the reply! I certainly didn't mean to suggests that WISPs should get any federal funding directly per se, more that one of the benefits of more fiber deployment would be more options for private higher speed "WISPs" (which could just be a techie on a hill who can put up a few cheap 400 Mbps class PtPs for some neighbors) so there might be coordination opportunities.

Per your comment elsewhere in the thread, I'd definitely like to see 100% of any NEW federal money in particular go to fiber. Even if it takes a while, every bit of incremental build out there is permanent progress, not wasted on dead end ancient copper.

Best of luck to you! I joined a vt governor's campaign back in 2010 in part because they were the only one to really focus on this issue. It's something I think could help the state significantly.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by trevyn on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @10:01AM (#23234944)

Is there any provision for homeless residents?

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by Avicebron on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @10:58AM (#23235559)

Thankfully Vermont does not have as a significant homelessness issue like the Bay (can attest, born and raised in Vermont, currently in the Bay). It's less of an issue relative to getting widespread internet.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by DFHippie on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @11:07AM (#23235652)

Parts of Vermont do have a sizable, if seasonal, homelessness problem. Brattleboro does, at any rate. Perhaps being in the Vermont banana belt does this.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by ErikAugust on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @01:03PM (#23237206)

Burlington does, seasonally.

However, Vermont gets very cold. Unless you want to hide out in someone's basement all winter to survive it's not really feasible to be homeless all year round.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by Avicebron on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @11:58AM (#23236300)

The homelessness problem is certainly seasonal. I guess the migratory nature of it lends itself to being harder to classify than the rampant tent cities out in the Bay.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by Red_Leaves_Flyy on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @06:51PM (#23241251)

This article doesn't exactly mirror your sentiment.

https://vtdigger.org/2019/11/29/despite-dropping-homeless-po...

I'd argue that people need shelter more than internet. Can't use internet if you're dead and all.

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Re:Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to ... by Avicebron on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @12:43PM (#23248970)

I'm not saying it's not a parallel problem?

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