NEK Broadband has been awarded a $16 million grant by the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB) to expand fiber access to 10 new Vermont communities. It’s among the earliest of what is likely to be a flurry of activity by the mostly-newly created Communications Union Districts - partnerships between rural cities and towns - which have formed over the last few years to solve the connectivity crisis for the tens of thousands of Vermonters who have been left behind by the current broadband marketplace.
A New Approach
Vermont’s broadband policy leaders say they plan to embrace CUDs as the primary avenue by which they hope to bridge the state’s long standing digital divide. A significant portion of the state’s $150 million broadband package will be funneled toward CUDs in a state where 85 percent of municipalities and 90 percent of underserved locations fall within a CUD.
The formation of most of the state’s CUDs is relatively new, though the most veteran example (EC Fiber) formed more than fifteen years ago. After years of persistence by EC Fiber, determined progress, and attitudinal changes in policy at the state level, CUDs now sit at the heart of the state’s rural broadband efforts.
Today, the municipally led CUDs can legally fund needed broadband expansions through debt, grants, and donations - but not taxes. Enter Vermont’s Act 71 Broadband Construction Grant program, which is doling out grants to the CUDs to deliver symmetrical speeds of 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) to underserved portions of the state.
NEK Among the First
NEK Broadband is one of nine municipal partnerships called Communications Union District (CUD), scattered across the state of...
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