[C]hristine Hallquist is pitching a familiar idea to Vermont lawmakers.
The former Democratic candidate governor was called to House and Senate committees Thursday to lay out her proposal to expand broadband in Vermont by encouraging utilities to install fiber infrastructure — a signature plank of her unsuccessful campaign in 2018.
Hallquist maintains that if electric companies — rather than internet companies — hang broadband cables, it will reduce the cost of expanding and delivering internet access throughout the state.
Electric utilities already operate large systems of poles to string electric wires, Hallquist says, and if they also strung fiber cables they would eliminate the expense that often discourages internet service providers from installing fiber in rural areas with few customers.
Internet companies would pay utilities a fee to use the fiber.
Hallquist — like many lawmakers and Gov. Phil Scott — sees expanding broadband as an essential step in turning around the state’s struggling rural economies.
“I know with absolute certainty that we are not going to improve our rural economy if we can’t get connected,” Hallquist told the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.
Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, the vice chair of the House Energy and Technology Committee, is sponsoring a bill that would fund a study to look into the feasibility of Hallquist’s plan in Vermont, which has been implemented in several states, including Virginia.
Sibilia said, however, that while encouraging utilities to install broadband may be a good solution to improving internet connectivity in the long-term, the state should take immediate action and throw a “life raft” to the rural municipalities that have struggled for years to get connected.
The Scott administration has pitched a slew of proposals to boost rural Vermont’s access to broadband, including a new loan program for “start up” internet companies that would be administered by and funded through the Vermont Economic Development Authority.
The governor also wants legislators to change law so that municipalities underserved by broadband providers can use general obligation bonds to pay for broadband projects.
But in an interview Thursday, Hallquist said lawmakers should prioritize her plan to change the way fiber infrastructure is installed over these other initiatives.
If it doesn’t become cheaper for internet service companies to deliver service in the most rural parts of the state, it will never reach those regions, she said.
“All these other proposals are dancing around what is a flawed model,” Hallquist said.