WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Vt. Towns Team Up to Bring in Broadband

Vt. Towns Team Up to Bring in Broadband

Tunbridge, Vermont - September 8, 2009

Janet Zug owns and operates a glass blowing shop out of her Tunbridge home. But when it comes to day-to-day business, like shipping packages, Zug cannot depend on her current dial-up internet connection.

"It's just so slow and sometimes it doesn't even go," Zug said. "It will take me 20 minutes to get one label printed through dial-up."

Zug is like thousand of Vermonters who do not have access to high-speed broadband.

But residents in East Central Vermont plan to change that. Twenty-two towns have banded together using an interlocal contract to build their OWN fiber optic network called ECFiber. Representatives met Monday to discuss the project.

"There are no incumbent carriers that are going to come in and serve us so we either take matters into our own hands and build this network ourselves or else we are going to be left behind," said Loredo Sola of ECFiber.

The Atlantic Engineering Group will eventually build the network. The Georgia-based company is fronting the capital to start design work.

Officials say the network-- which will allow cable TV and telephone as well as internet-- will pay for itself by subscribers like Sarah Burger, who currently uses satellite.

"We are changing from an agricultural economy to something that will connect us to the modern economy throughout the world. Without this, I think Vermont will be left behind," said Burger of Chelsea.

An application has been submitted to Washington, D.C., for nearly $65 million in stimulus money that will come in the form of a low interest loan. Sola says the project can be used as a model for the rest of Vermont and the country.

"There is no reason why this type of financing, this type of technology and organization can't be replicated time after time," he said. "We can march across rural America."

But first, the plan is to march across these 22 towns. Something people who work from home say is vital to the future of their business.

"It's community owned and those who subscribe will be giving back to their community and it is just huge," Zug said.

It's estimated that the entire fiber network will take about two to three years to build. When that happens, about 23,000 homes and businesses throughout rural Vermont will be connected to the latest in high-speed technology.

Officials at ECFiber say they plan to find out if their application was accepted by early November. As for prices, the company says cable TV, telephone, and internet connections will start at about $60 to $65 a month.

Adam Sullivan - WCAX News