RURAL BROADBAND BEGINS IN CENTRAL VERMONT
PLAINFIELD, Vt.—High-speed Internet service is finally reaching rural parts of Plainfield, Marshfield, East Montpelier and Calais.
Cloud Alliance, a Vermont-based Internet provider, began wireless broadband service to sections of the four communities on Thursday. The long-awaited project, which will expand to include other towns in central Vermont, offers Internet access at more than ten-times the speed of dial-up service.
“Lightning-fast Internet access is at long last reaching our dirt roads and remote hillsides,” said Jake Marsh, co-founder of Cloud Alliance. “Thousands of Vermonters will soon be experiencing the Internet’s full potential.”
Thursday’s launch of the Internet service comes as many rural sections of Vermont struggle to keep pace with urbanized areas in the information age. Cloud Alliance’s service is wireless; it works by transmitting the broadband service over radio-frequency waves from a central location to homes and businesses across the region. The broadband signal is received using a small dish (like satellite television). No cell towers are required for a wireless Internet system.
The first customer installations are now underway. Early supporters of the project from the four communities, who agreed to pay for a year of service in advance, will be among the first subscribers. Cloud Alliance will gradually expand service to more customers in January. The coverage area will eventually reach Worcester, Middlesex, and beyond.
“Anyone interested in fast Internet service should register at our web site: www.cloudalliance.com,” said Tom Stillwell, a Cloud Alliance spokesman. “This allows us to determine if a home or business can pick up the wireless signal. And it helps us determine where to focus expansion efforts.”
Cloud Alliance includes among its partners Stowe-based PowerShift Online Services (www.gopowershift.com), which is expanding its array of broadband services, and Island Pond Wireless (www.islandpondwireless.com), which already offers high-speed wireless service in the Northeast Kingdom.
Thursday’s service launch culminates a two-year effort by a citizen’s group, the Marshfield-Plainfield Community Internet Project. With support from the selectboards in the two towns, the group recruited Cloud Alliance after a competitive bidding process. The effort soon grew to other nearby central Vermont communities.
“We couldn’t wait for the politicians and the huge telecommunications companies to bring us broadband service,” said Michael Birnbaum, a member of the Marshfield-Plainfield group. “So we engineered a home-grown solution.”
“We’re tired of being told by other companies that we can’t have broadband access in certain parts of town,” said Scott Bassage of Calais.
The expansion of broadband service to many rural places has proven difficult. Many telephone and cable Internet companies won?t serve rural areas because of low population densities. So Plainfield and Marshfield, working with Cloud Alliance, solicited broad support for the project.
Washington Electric Cooperative has agreed to guarantee, or back, half the value of a $50,000 loan from Community Capital of Central Vermont, a non-profit lending arm of the Central Vermont Community Action Council. WEC will also administer a $50,000 grant toward the project from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was passed through the Montpelier-based Vermont Broadband Council.
“This project would not have been possible without all the support we’ve seen from the community,” said Tom Joyce, Cloud Alliance co-founder. “We can proudly say that central Vermont is headed towards a brighter and more technologically advanced future.”
Bill Powell, WEC’s director of products and services, describes the project as “a great opportunity to help our membership in these towns gain high-speed Internet access for the first time.”