State officials awarded almost $4 million in grants last week for projects to expand broadband access during the pandemic, using money directed to Vermont through the federal CARES Act.
The $3,926,650 given out by the Department of Public Service will go to seven internet providers around the state, according to a press release, and fund projects to serve more than 5,800 locations.
“It is our hope that these grants will bring prompt relief to those who have endured poor connectivity through this pandemic,” said Clay Purvis, the department’s telecommunications director.
Almost 40% of the 5,800 locations lack internet speeds of 4 megabits per second for downloads and 1 megabit per second for uploads. That’s the lowest-speed tier Public Service publishes in its broadband availability statistics before deeming an address underserved.
Federal authorities define broadband, or high-speed connection, as achieving speeds of 25 megabits per second for downloads and 3 megabits per second for uploads.
The largest grant — close to $2 million — went to the Vermont Telephone Co., known as VTel.
According to the Department of Public Service, VTel’s project is aimed at providing wireless broadband to just under 4,000 locations.
“We’re very humbled and honored to have them allocate $2 million of this $4 mil to our project,” company president Michel Guite said.
Guite said the project will equip six towers around the state with new wireless technology that will be able to reach high-priority addresses.
The towers are in Bolton, Jay, Londonderry, Marlboro, St. Albans and Williamstown, records show. Guite said VTel owns all but one of the towers, but is optimistic the owner of the remaining tower will move quickly.
Guite acknowledged that, with past grant projects in the last decade, VTel had made errors in its service estimations. State and congressional lawmakers scrutinized and called for audits of the company’s grant-backed projects in a yearslong saga.
Guite said the flawed past coverage projections happened because the company was working with a new technology. But he said the technology for the new grant proposal — called “massive MIMO” — is more proven. And he said his firm has invested $200,000 in improving its data collection and the accuracy of its projections.
“We were really too optimistic 10 years ago,” he said. “We will make the testing results by address completely public, and you’ll see for yourself.”
He said speeds from the new project will achieve the 25/3 definition of broadband at minimum, “but I think they’ll be much faster.”
The second-largest award — close to $1.12 million — went to ECFiber, the state’s first communications union district. Public Service officials said that effort will extend fiber broadband to close to 400 locations.
The project has two parts, both focused on mobile homes, said Chris Recchia, managing director of ValleyNet, which runs the ECFiber broadband network.
For mobile homes to receive utilities like broadband, they need to be connected underground, Recchia said.
“Normally what happens is, we pay for everything to the street, and then the homeowner’s responsible for paying from the utility pole to the house,” he said.
That’s often unaffordable for residents, he said. So ECFiber plans to use the grant money to build the connections to every unit in 13 mobile home parks.
Five parks are in Randolph, Recchia said. Three are in Royalton, two are in Bethel and Braintree, and Sharon and Woodstock have one each. More than half of the grant money will go toward building underground conduits at those parks to allow fiber connections.
The remaining money will allow ECFiber to do the same buildout with individual mobile homes within its coverage area.
“These are people who have subscribed with us but have not taken service because of the underground costs,” he said of the owners of the individual mobile homes. Only a few residents of the trailer parks have expressed interest in ECFiber, he said, but the new buildout will give them the option to connect in the future. And he thinks the buildout will spur interest.
“And I think it will help equalize the level of service that people are able to get who maybe otherwise couldn’t afford it,” he said. “And I am very excited that these parks often have a lot of school-age children — they’re going to be learning from home.”
Both Guite and Recchia highlighted a challenge with the grant projects: Everything has to be completed by Dec. 31, as with other CARES Act–funded work.
“Well, we’re gonna try our darndest” to meet the deadline, Recchia said, though winter will likely stop the in-the-ground work.
“I’m hoping that we can do all the digging that we need to do in the next couple of months,” he said.
Guite said VTel believes it can complete its project “by year end,” while acknowledging the deadline will make it hard.
The grants came from two state programs: the Emergency Connectivity Initiative and the Get Vermonters Connected Now Initiative, both products of the state’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Other recipients in the first round of awards include Mansfield Community Fiber, the NEW Alliance (a joint venture between Cloud Alliance and New England Wireless), Duncan Cable, Comcast. and Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom.
Officials said more than $8 million remains for both grant programs, and that money will be given out in two more rounds of $4 million.
