[T]welve towns voted on Town Meeting Day to create Central Vermont Internet, a community fiber optic internet provider that could be up and running by 2020. The next step is forming the board and securing funding to make it happen.
“I was really encouraged both by the reception I got at the town meeting on the floor in Berlin, and as results trickled in,” said Jeremy Hansen, computer scientist and vice chair of the Berlin Selectboard who spearheaded the ballot measure.
Barre City, Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Marshfield, Middlesex, Montpelier, Northfield, Plainfield, Roxbury, Williamstown and Worcester will form a communications union district this year. Central Vermont Internet is modelled after ECFiber, a 24-member communications union district based in South Royalton that provides fiber optic internet services to towns across east central Vermont.
Hansen proposed the idea at last year’s Berlin town meeting after hearing residents echo his frustrations about lack of access to high-speed internet, especially outside of town centers.
Central Vermont Internet will be run by a board consisting of a representative from each of its member towns. Hansen, who hopes to serve as the Berlin representative, said he will write to the selectboards and city councils of the 12 towns reminding them of their statutory obligation to appoint a board member by the end of April.
“I’m hoping to tell them if I know of people … who I think would be interested in serving on the board. In most towns, I’ve heard from at least one person from each town who said they want to help in whatever way they can,” Hansen said.
Vermont statute calls for communications union districts to have annual board meetings on the second Tuesday in May, meaning Central Vermont Internet’s first board meeting should occur on May 8.
Hansen said he anticipates the board’s first major project after “getting its organizational ducks in a row” will be seeking initial funding from community members and local businesses for operational expenses and feasibility studies. He has calculated that Central Vermont Internet will be feasible if six people per mile of network pay a monthly subscription rate starting at $66 per month for a base speed of 17Mbps upload/download speed, with a higher rate for higher speeds.
“I have already had residents of the towns approach and say they would like to invest. I literally had someone walk up to me at town meeting and want to write a loan for $1,000, but we need to get our bank account set up first,” Hansen said.
Hansen believes build-out on the fiber optic network won’t start until 2020, after the organization has received municipal bonds.
“I think it’s really going to take us that long to be secure in our own organization, and have a business plan and finances. We can’t walk into the bond market day one and say here we are as an unknown quantity,” Hansen said.
He said the board will also need to determine the network’s initial build-out location.
“It’s easy for me to say where we should build-out, but this is a democratic process,” he said. “It’s important for all of the communities and their delegates to have their say, and come up with the best area to start work.”