The legislature this year set new broadband goals for the state, including an ambitious 10-year objective that would essentially require fiber optic broadband to every Vermont address by the end of 2024.
The Public Service Department now says reaching the goal would cost nearly $1 billion.
Vermont Telecommunications Director Jim Porter says the cost calculation is in response to public comments about the state’s draft 10-year Telecommunications Plan.
“The one way I can tell you [the plan] will change is we will have much more granular and specific information as to cost projections," Porter says.
Few Vermonters turned out at a series of public hearings held last month to solicit comments on the plan, but those who did were often critical of what they saw as a lack of detail about how Vermont can reach the 10-year goal set by lawmakers, what it would cost to get there, and where the money would come from.
Porter says, currently, 9 percent of Vermont addresses have fiber-to-the-home service.
He says based on information the state has been gathering in recent weeks, the estimated cost of getting fiber to the remaining 91 percent would be nearly $1 billion.
Porter says the figure is based largely on VTel’s cost of building a rural fiber network in southeastern Vermont.
Porter isn’t suggesting the state go about finding $1 billion. Instead he wants to target the estimated 22 percent of Vermonters who don’t have speeds that meet the current federal definition of broadband.
To critics, the draft report seemed to recommend spending state grant money on incremental improvements in their service, which they argued wouldn’t help reach the long term goal.
Porter says the revised telecom plan will make clear that the state should give priority to projects that will provide the highest speeds possible to underserved addresses. The projects would be funded by grants from a newly established Connectivity Fund. Money will also be available through the federal Connect America Fund.
Porter says for the most part the final version of the 10-year plan won’t differ from the draft.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s anything new, I just think it’s more detail and more highlighting of pieces that are in the plan,” he says.
He says he realizes critics of the plan want a more specific roadmap for reaching the 2024 goal, but he says a federal grant program next year, changes in the telecom business, and technological developments make it difficult to predict what the state will need to do in the future.
It’s likely the plan's critics will feel that their concerns, which go beyond the issue of cost estimates, have not been addressed.
Written comments submitted by Leslie Nulty echo other views expressed during last month’s public hearings.
Until 2013, Nulty was project coordinator for the community-owned ECFiber network in central Vermont.
Nulty characterized the plan as ‘a Great Leap Backward”.
“The long range vision is admirable,” she wrote, “but unfortunately the plan offers no guidance at all as to how to reach it.”
Nulty and others encouraged the Public Service Department to consider bonding to build broadband infrastructure, rather than relying on money raised for grants.
They also argue the cost of building a statewide fiber system would be greatly reduced if cable companies and other providers who own fiber networks were required to allow competitors to use their lines in exchange for access to public rights of way.
State officials say they don’t have the power to require broadband providers to do that.
They point out that the regulatory environment is very different from the days when telecommunications was dominated by phone companies offering landline service, which the state had more power to regulate.
Broadband is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as an ‘information service’, so it isn’t subject to the same regulation as telecommunications services.
As a result, the state can’t compel broadband providers to expand into underserved areas, improve service and increase speeds.
This week the Public Service Department and the Public Service Board wrote a letter to the FCC urging it to reclassify broadband service as telecommunications.
“The FCC could make it a lot easier for us,” Porter says.
