Editorial Points: Is Broadband Grant a Fair Deal?

On the surface, the huge federal grant made to a private, for profit, company in Springfield which promises to link every town in Vermont with the rest of the world via a modern and inexpensive communications system, seemed like a good idea.
As the facts now become clearer, the federal grant of $116 million – the second largest of 126 such awards made nationally – doesn’t look that great. What many perceived would be a fast, reliable broadband service, long anticipated and needed by Vermont residents and businesses, is actually a combination of an ultra-fast fiber network broadband for a very few plus a separate system of wireless broadband service for the majority of the state.
VTel, the private company receiving the grant, will provide a fast fiber optic service to just its current 18,000 customers and leave the rest of Vermont to be connected by a wireless broadband service. VTel’s customers represent only a small number of the people and businesses in Vermont.
Wireless has its place, such as the newly launched Wireless Woodstock service which is provided by the Norman Williams Public Library, but it requires line of sight access to repeaters which in turn can be accessed by computers within a few hundred feet. Vermont’s mountains and valleys are a significant barrier to universal wireless service.
In Woodstock it is anticipated that there will need to be a network of over 20 repeaters, just to provide adequate service to the Village alone. Doing the math, it appears under the VTel plan there would need to be many towers and many, many repeaters installed throughout the state if all computers are to have reliable access to the Internet.
For businesses and individuals who are dependant on uploading or downloading video or graphics, something which more and more small businesses require, wireless has its limits. A hard-wired, fiber optic service is superior. Yet VTel plans only to provide such service to a small part of Vermont. The balance will eventually get a wireless system covering Vermont, which is far better than dialup, but leaves much to be desired.
What concerns us most is that apparently the USDA Rural Utilities Service who selected VTel to receive the $116 million gave little or no consideration to ECFiber, a nonprofit consortium of Vermont towns, when handing out the grants. ECFiber has an excellent plan to provide high-speed fiber optic service to 24 communities whose population rivals that of VTel’s customer base.
To make matters even more concerning, we learned that the Agency recently awarded $66 million to a nearly identical local government project in Lake County, Minn. Both this and the ECFiber project share the same network design, technology and business plan. Both involve about the same number of subscribers. How is it that a non-profit group in Minn. gets the nod worth 66 million in taxpayer dollars for fiber optic service, VTel, who apparently can’t get the job done the most effective way, gets $116 million, and ECFiber’s plan to serve 18,000 households and 1,300 businesses a better way gets zilch?
Politics? Simple Oversight? Better lobbying by VTel? Bureaucratic stupidity? What? Let’s ask members of our congressional delegation for an explanation. See last week’s Standard for how to reach them. Or, email pcamp@thevermontstandard.com for the contact information.
“Life in Windsor County”
Recently, long-time state senator Bill Doyle of Washington County came to Woodstock, but he wasn’t campaigning for any office! He was sharing his passion for Vermont history as he and his associates premiered the history documentary “Life in Windsor County,” the seventh such film about different counties in the state.
Bill Doyle is the same dedicated public servant who originated a survey back in 1969, which takes the pulse of voters on town meeting day in all the counties in the state and thus provides an overview of how Vermonters feel about a wide range of issues. He shares the results with all members of the legislature as well as the media.
It’s not only his decades-long work in the legislature that we salute, but also his partnership with Johnson State College which has resulted in this, and many other excellent films about Vermont history. The latest, which features our own Windsor County played to a full house at Town Hall last week.
Johnson State College plans to send free DVD copies of the documentary to all schools, libraries and historical societies in the county. For those who would like to make a donation to help with this effort, or to obtain their own personal copy which features more than 200 images and stories about Windsor County’s history, local bookstores will have copies for $15, or they can contact the producer, Vince Franke of Peregrine Productions, at his website, www.peregrineproductions.com.