[G]race Cottage Hospital, at one time the only hospital in Vermont with no cell phone service, was finally connected in June 2017.
The hospital’s patients value the ability to contact loved ones with medical updates, says Andrea Seaton, the hospital’s director of community affairs. Before its cellular antenna was installed, “We would often see people walking around campus holding up their cellphones, desperately seeking a signal.”
Now, less than one year later, that signal may disappear.
Vanu CoverageCo, a company that used new technology to provide cell service to major corridors and hotspots in dozens of rural Vermont towns, is on the brink of dissolving. The company is in debt to the electrical and internet utilities that make its service possible, and the revenue it brings in from cellular carriers isn’t closing the gap.
Over half of its coverage area has already gone dark.
“Cellphone coverage in rural places has always been difficult,” says Matt Dunne, a former advisor to CoverageCo who wrote about the service in Wired last year.
But this project also faced specific challenges, he says — challenges that made the plan to provide basic connectivity to rural Vermont unsustainable.
On this week’s podcast, Grace Cottage’s Andrea Seaton describes what’s at stake for their facility and patients. Plus, Matt Dunne talks about how CoverageCo and its government partners could have worked towards a sustainable model — and how the next rural cellular vendor might do the same.
Subscribe to the Deeper Dig on Apple Podcasts or Google Play. Music by Lee Rosevere and Blue Dot Sessions.
