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Old Town, Orono Release Broadband Survey in Maine
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Nonprofit Old Town Orono Fiber (OTO Fiber) is awaiting responses to a recently posted broadband survey. A fiber-optic network is in the works for both Orono and Old Town, but funds are limited. Local officials seek input from local residents and business to “determine both the interest in this project and where the Internet infrastructure would need to be established.”
Approximately 7,800 people live in Old Town; a little over 10,000 people are in Orono and there are also over 11,000 University of Maine students who attend classes there.
Old Town, Orono, and the University of Maine lost a funding battle against Time Warner Cable in 2015. That incident dealt with an area where only about 320 potential subscribers could be served with approximately four miles of fiber. A recent $250,000 grant from the Northern Border Regional Commission put the consortium back on track to finish that project. OTO Fiber is now gathering more information about where to best deploy a broader network; they have funding for about six miles of fiber in each community.
Locals are enthusiastic about high-speed fiber’s potential benefits to the community. OTO Fiber’s survey page states,
“The purpose of having this infrastructure in our community is to bolster existing businesses that can take advantage of this connectivity and to attract and foster entrepreneurs, students and recent graduates to create new businesses and enterprises that rely on high-bandwidth connectivity. To help us advance this project, please complete one or both of the following surveys.”
A fast, reliable, affordable connection can promote job growth and keep college-age talent in the region. Residents can look forward to symmetrical high-speed connections (the same speeds on the upload and the download) that will open the door to improved video streaming, telemedicine, virtual reality gaming, and a number of other high bandwidth technologies.
The local towns' networks will connect to Maine’s Three Ring Binder middle mile dark fiber open access network.
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