Six Vermont communities will benefit from a state program designed improve broadband service to businesses.
The Vermont Telecommunications Authority’s Business Broadband Improvement Districts program will fund two projects to bring fiber optic service to parts of Braintree, Brookfield, Putney, North Randolph, Pomfret and Sharon.
The VTA will use state money provided under the 2010 Backroads Broadband legislation to construct the open access fiber.
This system will then be connected to customer locations by service providers.
The VTA says ECFiber will serve locations in Braintree, Brookfield, North Randolph, Pomfret and Sharon.
Southern Vermont Cable Company will be the anchor tenant for locations in Putney.
In a news release, the VTA says, “Dozens of small enterprises within these Districts depend on the Internet to accomplish tasks that require higher speeds than basic broadband provides. The applicants to the VTAs new business broadband initiative do not have the capacity they need.”
The projects are due to be completed in mid-2015.
The projects were chosen from among applications submitted by towns and local and regional organizations.
(An earlier version of this story referred to the fiber projects as 'middle mile', a term that applies to limited access systems, unlike the VTA open access projects.)
