The Vermont Telephone Company (VTel) has not begun work on its $116 million broadband project expansion project because of a pending environmental agreement with a federal agency.
In an interview last week, VTel president Justin Robinson said the company’s work was awaiting a “programmatic agreement” from the USDA Rural Development Rural Utilities Service before the company can start construction of an extensive network of fiber optic cable and wireless 4G/LTE devices. The rollout is supposed to extend Internet access “to virtually every unserved anchor institution, unserved home, and unserved business throughout Vermont.”
Rural Development awarded the grant to VTel in August 2010. The money must be spent by September 2013.
The federal agreement with VTel sets up environmental review requirements for the company’s interactions with state and local officials. The agreement is designed to enable VTel and state agencies to work together to make efficient and considered decisions regarding fiber optic and wireless tower build outs.
Karen Marshall, chief of ConnectVT, an organization that assists with the development of information systems, said the agreement is awaiting final approval by Rural Utilities Service.
“To my understanding, VTel and the Vermont (Division of) Historic Preservation as well as the counterpart at Rural Utilities Service, have been working on a programmatic agreement,” Marshall said.
Marshall said once federal approval is granted VTel must apply for permits at the state level before construction begins.
Devin Colman, historic buildings specialist at the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, explained that the programmatic agreement “lays out a framework in which everyone is on the same page as to how the project review will play out.”
Colman explained this is necessary because VTel does not yet have exact plans for where they will be placing new equipment. The programmatic agreement spells out which consultations will be necessary with state government as these decisions are made by VTel.
Marshall, whose role in this project has been to facilitate VTel’s communication with state and federal government, says she visited the RUS office in Washington two weeks ago and expected the federal agency to approve the plan the following week.
She said in an interview on Friday she had not had contact with RUS since May 24. In a follow-up call later that day, Marshall said that she had spoken with RUS “earlier today.”
Marshall said this year’s telecom bill, S.78, will help to expedite the permitting process at the state level.
VTel has indicated that they will be licensing their project through Title 30, Section 248a, an alternative to Act 250 environmental review available to the telecom industry. Section 248a reviews are conducted by the Vermont Public Service Board.
The 248a process requires companies to submit an “intent to file” 45 days before they file an application. If such a submission was made on June 3, VTel would be unable to apply for permits until July 18. Application processing times vary, but for a large part of the VTel project, the company will be making what S.78 defines as “de minimis” modifications, which means that they will be modifying existing equipment. In this case, VTel will be running fiber optic cable throughout their existing service footprint. This permitting process takes 21 days and would allow VTel to begin running cable on August 8 at the earliest.
Other aspects of the project, which involve erecting new signal towers for VTel’s Wireless Open World network, could be delayed into mid-October as they await permitting processes that can reach 180 days in length.
