WINOOSKI — Business leaders gathered Wednesday to discuss whether the state can implement high-speed Internet to every home, and if so, how.
The Vermont Technology Alliance hosted Jim Porter, the director of telecommunications and connectivity at the Public Service Department, to talk about the future of high-speed Internet in Vermont.
Porter told about two dozen attendees that companies do not find it profitable to build fiber-optic cable — the highest level of broadband technology currently available — to every last address on every last dirt road in Vermont.
Porter said the state could easily spend $360 million to $1 billion paying companies to bring fiber-optic cable to every address. He said he would rather spend up to $5 million a year on the hardest-to-reach areas and get the other addresses served through the Federal Communications Commission’s subsidy programs.
Porter also faced questions from business leaders concerned about whether those living in the territory of the Vermont Telephone Co.’s Wireless Open World project — which the feds say is complete, even though many locals say they can’t buy service — will ever have access to another option.
He showed the audience maps of which addresses can buy Internet service through at least one company. The maps do not include the VTel Wireless Open World project because the company did not provide data to prove those people who were waiting for coverage are now covered, Porter has said when displaying them before.
Porter said people at about 71 percent of addresses in Vermont can sign up for Internet service with a speed of 25 mbps for downloading and 3 mbps for uploading. “With two-thirds of the people covered, we’ve sort of reached the goal where we need to be,” he said.
The state’s 2014 telecommunications plan calls for all addresses — including businesses — in Vermont to have access to fiber-optic cable by the year 2024. But Porter said he has no power to force companies to build in rural areas, and only the Federal Communications Commission could give it to him.
Bob Feuerstein, the president of Kennedy Brothers, a building company in Vergennes, said at the meeting that it could easily cost telecommunications companies $5,000 per connection to provide fiber-optic cable to every address in Vermont.
“There’s really no way to compel a company to build out when you’re talking about broadband,” Porter said. He said he’s been dreaming of a time when the federal government would let him regulate broadband because “it would make my job so easy.”
Porter said he remembers a time when, in order to get landline telephone service, people had to rent the device they used in their homes. Back then, he said, the FCC used its regulatory power to force telephone companies to provide service to every address.
While it was forcing universal landline service, the FCC used revenue from the universal service fee on landline phone bills to subsidize those companies. In 2011, the FCC stopped subsidizing landline phone companies and used the money to encourage building out broadband.
But, according to Porter, the FCC has not extended the tax to Internet service bills, so there’s not enough money to build universal fiber across the country. Additionally, he said federal regulators are providing incentive for broadband buildout, rather than requiring it.
“I don’t think that we’re ever going to, certainly at the state level, regulate broadband like we used to regulate telephone service,” Porter said. “I’m forever hopeful that the amount of money available for broadband support will grow.”
He added: “I’m sure there are companies that do have the money to build broadband to every last mile. However, the companies are loath to build where there is no business case.”
“Even with a grant program, there are areas where providers tell us that even if we pay for the infrastructure, there’s not enough of a business case to maintain the infrastructure,” he said. “It’s a vexing problem.”
