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Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, June 2010
More than 40 towns in Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties are expected to give initial approval this spring to a plan to develop the “last mile” infrastructure necessary to create widespread broadband Internet access in the region.
For several years, the state, through the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, has been promoting efforts to deliver broadband in rural areas. But the for-profit service providers have not been interested in laying the fiber-optic lines that would be linked directly to homes and businesses, according to Mount Washington Selectman Jim Lovejoy.
Lovejoy is a founder of WiredWest, a nonprofit entity that is seeking to complement the Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s efforts to establish more than 1,000 miles of “middle mile” fiber-optic cable in the state’s western counties.
By late May, town meetings in Mount Washington and at least 34 other communities had given their approval for selectmen to begin negotiating an intermunicipal agreement to create a jointly owned network capable of delivering high-speed Internet and other services to residences and businesses throughout the region. At least seven towns will be voting on the proposal in June.
Town Meeting approval isn’t required for selectmen to begin discussing an agreement, Lovejoy said, but putting the matter before voters is a useful means of demonstrating public support for the project.
The Massachusetts Broadband Institute, which is seeking federal stimulus funds, is aiming to complete the fiber rings two-and-a-half years from now. WiredWest hopes to have obtained enough financing to build out its own network by that point as well.
Lovejoy compared the project to efforts that began in the 1930s to bring electricity and telephone service to rural areas. He said widespread broadband Internet access is crucial to the region’s vitality. The project is well ahead of similar initiatives in other rural areas, including in Georgia and North Carolina, he said.
In Mount Washington, a town of fewer than 400 residents, there is no broadband Internet access at all. Town Hall has a dial-up connection, and Lovejoy said he typically downloads town-related documents, such as health department notices and affidavits for the town tax bill, at the office in which he works in neighboring Sheffield.
“State government expects that communities are going to get information on the Internet,” Lovejoy said. “They don’t necessarily mail things anymore.”
Monica Webb, a spokesperson for WiredWest, said that a consultant who met last year with representatives from Mount Washington and 10 other towns in southern Berkshire County estimated the cost of building a fiber-optic network for that region at $27 million.
But, Webb said, the consultant calculated that the roughly 12,000 households in the region were already paying an average of $125 a month for Internet and other telecommunication services – an amount that adds up to $18 million a year that people “are putting in an envelope and sending outside of your region.”
Developing the fiber-optic network, Webb said, will create jobs and pump money into the local economy.
Webb anticipates that, within five to seven years after completion, WiredWest will be generating net income from the fees charged to service providers that use the fiber-optic network. Revenue beyond the break-even point, she said, will be paid out to the individual towns.
For more information, contact Jim Lovejoy at (413) 229-9008.