Hi there, I'm a part of this effort and we did learn from the Burlington Telecom fiasco. Legislation was passed in 2014 that provided for the forming of Communications Union Districts which can build municipally controlled broadband infrastructure, but can't access the municipal bond market, meaning taxpayers are never at risk. The downside of this is we have to rely on federal funding in most cases since private capital wants to make sure they have the option to take it out on the taxpayer if the debt load becomes unserviceable. Right now this is not an issue at all for us with hundreds of millions of stimulus money specifically for broadband floating around, the challenge is beating Comcast et al to the money bin. Comcast in particular is pure evil in Vermont, they signed a contract to build out a paltry 550 miles of new cable to unserved addresses over 10 years (55 miles a year) and then sued the state afterwards for infringing on their 1st amendment rights.<p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/comcast-sues-vermont-to-avoid-building-550-miles-of-new-cable-lines/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/comcast-sues-ver...</a><p>I'm with one of the largest CUDs in VT, NEK Community Broadband, which represents 27 towns in the northeast of the state. We're talking to our state government as we speak to make sure incumbent providers are held accountable if they are provided with federal money, and preferably, build our own infrastructure. The timeline for this has shrunk from 3-5 years, to 8 MONTHS by restrictions imposed on spending CARES act and other federal dollars by Jan 1. It's an exciting time!
I live in Vermont and I'm tentatively excited about this. Unfortunately, our municipal internet provider in Burlington, VT was financially a disaster [1].<p>The tax payers put up a bunch of money. Burlington Telecom was mismanaged into defaulting on its debts causing the city's bond rating to fall to nearly junk bond status. It was sold at a loss to a private company. [2]<p>Very disappointing considering how awesome Burlington Telecom is. I currently pay $35 for 1G symmetrical in my apartment building.<p>Hopefully if this statewide project goes through, they don't repeat those mistakes.<p>[1] <a href="https://vermontbiz.com/news/2019/march/13/citibank-fully-releases-burlington-335-million-bt-lawsuit" rel="nofollow">https://vermontbiz.com/news/2019/march/13/citibank-fully-rel...</a> (Citibank fully releases Burlington from $33.5 million BT lawsuit)<p>[2] <a href="https://www.wcax.com/content/news/The-Burlington-Telecom-saga-and-how-we-got-to-where-we-are-455070453.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.wcax.com/content/news/The-Burlington-Telecom-sag...</a> (Burlington Telecom timeline: How did we get here?)
I wish more states viewed it this way. I think that COVID19 has proven that Internet isn't a luxury, it's a utility that we all need. In a world with online meetings being the way to simply hang out with your friends, those with bad Internet connections are suffering more. It shouldn't be that way.
I live in Longmont, Colorado, and we have cheap municipal fiber.<p>1Gbps, synchronous, $55/mo.<p>Just now:<p><a href="https://www.speedtest.net/result/9466487634.png" rel="nofollow">https://www.speedtest.net/result/9466487634.png</a><p>Similar speeds on Netflix's fast.com.<p>This is what happens when monopolies have competition they can bully, but not buy.
I've been looking into buying a house and moving to Vermont. The topic of fuller, better internet coverage seems to come up every few years. So I'm a little skeptical to see it now.<p>I'm not sure I'd consider it a blocker to moving there, even if I'm dependent on the internet for work. I'm assuming I'll always be able to lease an office within an hour drive of the house.<p>I wonder how practical satellite options like Viasat are says it gets 12-100Mbps download across Vermont. That's as good as Comcast's consumer broadband gets you in Philly.<p>If there are any folks here who own and live on land in Vermont I'd love to ask you more about how/where you're living and working, if you wouldn't mind.
Yay for Vermont, but I hope they give their plan some teeth when the big telcos (who presumably would be doing the work) inevitably do not deliver on their promises.<p>It would be much better if they turn it into the state-wide equivalent of municipal broadband. Maybe that's what they are thinking? The article is very light on details.
My wife is a VT teacher, in secondary education. Obviously with Covid all students are being educated online. Those who do not have an online are at a quite significant disadvantage.<p>That is, at least until this is over broadband to all can be thought of as, in part, component of a statewide education infrastructure.
Godspeed Vermont. May you have more success than your promised single-payer health care.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform</a>
Municipal internet is something we should all get behind because the internet is no longer a luxury, or a tool, it's an essential service. Imagine not having the internet in the next pandemic.
Growing up in Vermont wifi was so bad. Cell signal is still pretty awful in many parts of the state especially the northern kingdom.<p>Hope this goes through. I have friends that are still on dial up.
> <i>That’s defined as speeds of 25 megabits per second for download and 3 megabits per second for upload.</i><p>I really wish they just considered symmetrical speeds. These bizarre asymmetric speed limits are just a made-up limitation of the Comcast era.
I'm always surprised by how bad and expensive the internet providers in the US are. Where I am (think major city in a 3rd world country), I pay about 20 USD a month for 650gb at 150mbps (up and down).
Vermont has a troubled recent history with expensive, state-wide public initiatives:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform#Green_Mountain_Care" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform#Gre...</a><p>The elimination of rent-seeking behavior from healthcare and Internet service is great, in theory. For whatever combination of reasons, the state government of Vermont and city government of Burlington have had difficulty putting this theory into practice.
I'd expect the Comcast lobbyists to go into overdrive to get this decision overturned. Also, I'd expect them to file a lawsuit against the state government of VT in a similar desired outcome. This would lead to the domino effect if it were allowed to occur.
It's really interesting watching the natural experiments that are the northern New England states. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are small, essentially the same founding stock, and yet they go in such radically different directions.
State wide broadband is extremely hard to do.<p>If you look at all the successful community broadband initiatives in the US, they are almost always at the city/county level.
These latest "broadband" efforts look like just another money grab by the same incumbents (Comcast, Frontier, etc) and the same state and federal bureaucracies that have failed to deliver competition and access. Vermont should simply announce full throated support for low-orbit satellite internet, which is under active deployment from SpaceX and also development from Amazon.
I wonder if this will be used as an excuse to start censoring the internet just as the FCC used "public airwaves" as an excuse to censor broadcast.