As the internet has advanced over the past two decades, Craig Line’s connection from Calais has not. He’s endured subpar service via a satellite dish and, more recently, through a brand-name provider operating through copper wire infrastructure.
Now, Line said he’s finally able to surf the web and stream video at home without interruption. He’s among the first Calais residents to enjoy high-speed internet provided by CVFiber, a communications union district that announced last week that it has connected its first customers.
The announcement is an indication that Vermont’s strategy for extending broadband to every address in the state has begun to bear fruit for rural Vermonters who have lacked adequate internet access.
Operating in central Vermont, CVFiber is one of the state’s 10 communications union districts, or CUDs, nonprofit entities representing municipal districts that have banded together to provide broadband access to unserved and underserved households.
“My connection is just phenomenal now,” Line said. He said he’s faced no spontaneous interruptions in service since CVFiber got him connected several weeks ago as one of a handful of trial users.
Line, an avid fan of baseball and public broadcast television, said that he has begun to stream television over the internet and has ditched his satellite dish.
He also maintains a website for his maple sugaring business, as well as one for displaying his photography. He said he’s optimistic that he “won’t have to worry anymore” about connectivity issues while managing those sites.
For years, though, Line was among the thousands of rural Vermonters struggling with limited access to high-quality internet connection. He said the pandemic-era lockdowns were particularly difficult for him.
At the time, he was on the board of trustees for the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. “We had to switch to Zoom meetings and I was the outlier,” he said. “I would freeze up. I would lose connection. It was really frustrating for everyone.”
In an interview, Olivia Kantyka, CVFiber’s community relations manager, said many of the CUDs’ future customers have endured similar experiences.
“Man, their service is really, really poor,” Kantyka said. Many can barely use the internet at home and often have to visit schools, public libraries or businesses to tap into their Wi-Fi networks.
In 2011, an FCC report ranked Vermont 38th in broadband access nationwide. Things haven’t gotten much better since. As of 2022, 65.5% of Vermont households didn’t have access to 100 megabits-per-second download and upload speeds, according to statistics compiled by the Department of Public Service.
In recent years, the state Legislature has steered both federal and state funding to the CUDs, aiming to reach the goal of providing every E911 household with broadband connection that meets the speed requirement of 100 mbps service.
As of July 2023, nearly 13,000 central Vermonters in CVFiber’s territory were either unserved or underserved. The CUD hopes to reduce that number to zero in the coming years as it continues to build fiber-optic infrastructure.
For now, CVFiber is working to connect the rest of the over 200 Calais residents who pre-registered for service before moving on to Worcester, Middlesex and East Montpelier. In all, CVFiber covers 20 communities in central Vermont.
Like other CUDs, CVFiber’s projects are being funded primarily by grant money allocated by the Vermont Community Broadband Board in addition to the potential use of federal money. The CUD offers its customers several plans depending on the desired speed, ranging from $79 per month for 100 mbps symmetrical service to $199 per month for 2000 mbps symmetrical service.