[1st-mile-nm] Vermont

[Steve Ross]

Article published Mar 5, 2008
An urgent call: Give us broadband, Vermont towns say

By Daniel Barlow Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER – Vermont voters sent a clear message to the 
world of high-speed Internet Tuesday: We want in.

Voters in at least 19 towns approved nonbinding resolutions 
to join in a regional effort to bring high-speed Internet 
via fiber-optic to their homes during town meetings held 
early this week and over the weekend.

In all on Tuesday, at least 13 towns approved the resolution 
to join the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network and 
organizers of the effort anticipate a full sweep of the more 
than 20 towns that had the item on their agenda once all the 
results were in.

Stan Williams, the chair of ValleyNet's Board of Directors, 
a non-profit ISP company from White River Junction that is 
assisting the effort, said he wasn't surprised at the number 
of towns supporting the effort, including some that didn't 
even have the issue on their agenda this week.

"What did surprise me was the number of towns that voted for 
this unanimously in voice votes," Williams said. "It's clear 
why towns would be interested in this, but we saw 100 
percent support in several towns."

According to a town meeting results on the Fiber Network's 
Web site, at least nine of the towns approved the resolution 
via voice votes from the floor with no dissent. In Norwich, 
it was approved on the ballot in a vote of 1315-128.

In the town of Bethel, voters easily and quickly approved 
the measure in a voice vote from the floor shortly at about 
1 p.m. Tuesday, before the meeting ended and residents went 
home from lunch. The question was the 23rd that morning on 
the ballot, second-to-last and right before the perennial 
final question inquiring if there is any other business to 
come before the time, which is always seen as being the 
ringing bell that ends sessions.

"So far we have heard of about four people in all the towns 
who voted nay," said Tim Nulty, the founder of Burlington 
Telecom, who left that position last year to lead this 
grassroots effort for ValleyNet. "We seem to be getting a 
lot of unanimous voice votes."

The effort, led by Internet-starved residents from more than 
20 towns and ValleyNet, would set up a subscriber-funded 
system that offers Internet, telephone and cable television 
opportunities in central and southern Vermont.

"I'm convinced this is the only way we in Vermont are going 
to get access to this high-speed stuff," said Jerry Drugonis 
of Pittsfield, one of the "surprise" towns that took up the 
issue Tuesday. "We've been at the tail end of the dog for a 
long time." ValleyNet officials hope to use pre-registered 
households in those communities to leverage investors to 
fund the infrastructure of the system, which they say will 
be faster and cheaper than the offerings by the major 
telecommunication companies here in the state. The financial 
plan of the system calls for it to become sustainable 
through memberships after several years.

Outside of Montpelier, (results for that city – the largest 
among the towns voting on the issue Tuesday – were not 
available Tuesday night), voters said access to high-speed 
Internet has become a necessity in this age.

Liisa Bradley of Calais, which did not vote on the issue 
Tuesday, said she is stuck with only dial-up at her home. 
Holding a sign for Sen. Barack Obama, her pick for 
president, she said she would like to watch some videos of 
him speaking at campaign rallies, but the videos load too 
slowly.

"I don't have that kind of patience," she said.

Joan Stander of Montpelier supported the fiber-optic 
question when she voted Tuesday. Access to high-speed 
Internet has become essential for economic and social 
reasons. She warned that Vermont was behind the curve in 
using and viewing all the material available on the Web.

"We really need access for all people," she said.

In the town of Tunbridge, voters approved the measure from 
the floor with only a single nay vote, according to Janet 
Zug, who serves on an committee organizing outreach for the 
network. She began working with a local committee 
investigating wireless Internet opportunities which recently 
folded into the fiber-optic network organization.

"We were looking at wireless before we heard about this 
fiber to the home option," she said. "That's the pot of gold."

High-speed Internet is only available in a few spots in 
Tunbridge – but not anywhere near Zug's home, where she runs 
a glass-blowing business. Her 26k dial-up Internet makes it 
a hassle to update her Web site and conduct other vital 
business, she said. "I do a lot of shipping and it takes 
about four minutes to load an item I need on the UPS Web 
site," she said. "It's outrageous."

Organizers of the effort will probably meet tonight to take 
a look at which towns expressed interest in the network and 
where to go from here, Williams said. With the already large 
amount of towns coming on board, he said some of the project 
may need to occur over several phases.

He encouraged residents in interested towns to begin 
pre-registering, which increases the chances their community 
is seen as a viable to launch the project.

"The more towns that pre-register, the easier it will be 
raise the money," Williams said.

Towns that voted for the network are Randolph, Sharon, 
Strafford, Vershire, Pittsfield, Brookfield, Pomfret, 
Stockbridge, Barnard, Bethel, Norwich, Royalton, Tunbridge, 
Hartford, Rochester, Thetford, West Fairlee, Woodstock and 
Reading.

Contact Daniel Barlow at Daniel.Barlow at rutlandherald.com.

-----

And now Tim Nulty's only trick will be to raise the money -- 
He's going for leases (investors own the network and leas 
eit back for, say, 15 years) to raise something like $80 
million. That's already a big number for that kind of 
financing, and more towns jumped in without prodding.

Tim is something of a genius, though -- PhD in finance, 
highly positioned in Clinton Administration, etc. So he'll 
probably figure something out.




Steven S. Ross
Editor-in-Chief
Broadband Properties
steve at broadbandproperties.com
www.bbpmag.com
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