A company that expanded a cellular network into rural sections of the state that are otherwise unable to make emergency calls is no longer providing service to more than half of its coverage area, according to the Department of Public Service.
Vanu CoverageCo, which the state recently learned is on the brink of dissolving, told the department Tuesday that 70 of its microcell sites across the state appear to be down.
The microcells are offline because the company is behind on paying bills to utilities including broadband and electricity companies, Clay Purvis, director of telecommunications and connectivity for the state, said in an interview.
Some sites may also be experiencing technical problems that haven’t been fixed, he said, adding that 55 microcells are still up and running.
The likelihood of losing CoverageCo has prompted concern from lawmakers and Gov. Phil Scott that residents in 26 rural communities that relied on the service will soon be unable to make emergency calls.
Purvis said that the state is seeking another vendor to take over CoverageCo’s cellular network as soon as possible. The department has yet to hone in on a likely candidate for the job, but will soon be posting a request for proposal from interested companies, he said.
“That will be the most straightforward way to ensure that these things can get back into service and providing coverage to Vermonters,” Purvis said. “I believe it’s time to move beyond CoverageCo absent a miracle at this point.”
But what remains of CoverageCo’s cellular network is still at risk. Last Friday, in a temporary move to maintain the network, Globecomm, a company that directs the calls going through CoverageCo’s network to other carriers, agreed not to pull its services.
The state has invested $4 million into the CoverageCo venture and owns the microcell equipment.
The company has roaming agreements with many carriers, which allows callers in range of the microcells to access normal cellphone service. AT&T, the state’s largest carrier, does not have a roaming agreement with CoverageCo.
A key revenue stream — customers of these carriers connecting to cellular networks through CoverageCo’s antennas, allowing the company to collect fees from those carriers — didn’t bring in enough proceeds to make the business viable, simply because call volumes in many areas weren’t as high as expected.
Vanu Bose, who was CEO of CoverageCo until he died in November, had said making the business work had been even more difficult than in Rwanda, the other location where the company rolled out the technology.
“We picked these two locations because we knew they would be challenging in terrain and population density,” Bose told Wired magazine last year. “What we didn’t expect was that many of the problems were the same in Rwanda and Vermont — and in fact the rollout has been much easier in Africa.”
Barb Neal, executive director of Vermont’s Enhanced 911 board, said that in 2017, 804 emergency calls in Vermont were made through CoverageCo, up from 763 in 2016.
Last week, Neal provided testimony to the House Committee on Energy and Technology on the impact of CoverageCo’s financial woes. She was joined by officials from Grace Cottage Hospital in Townshend, which received cell coverage for the first time through the microcells.
Douglas DiVello, the hospital’s CEO, said he hoped they would not have to return to being disconnected.
“That’s a very dangerous situation to be in, for anybody,” DiVello said in an interview last week. “Grace Cottage likes to be well known for the quality of care we provide, we don’t want to be known for being the only hospital in the state of Vermont that doesn’t have cellphone reception.”
Purvis said that as of Tuesday evening, the hospital still had CoverageCo service. He added that the department is working with carriers to see if they could expand their networks to serve critical sites like the hospital.
Hear more about CoverageCo in this week’s Deeper Dig podcast:
