East Central Vermont
Community Fiber Network

Welcome to the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network's public website.

ECFiber In the News
Find links to important stories about ECFiber on our page.

Stories from the Community
See a selection of stories about the need for this project from members of our communities.

Pre-Register to indicate your interest and to show your support for the project. You can see up-to-the-minute pre-registration status at the bottom of this page.

The monthly Governing Board meetings are open to the public and are a very good place to get the most up-to-date information. Meeting dates are listed above.

ECFiber is moving towards its goal of providing universal fiber-optic high-speed internet in our towns. As many of you know, our plan for a public offering was all set to go, until in September 2008, Lehman Brothers’ demise essentially shut down capital markets. Since then we have unsuccessfully sought Federal government stimulus money, the capital markets have returned, and we have been working to restart our public offering.

You may have read recently of a Federal grant of $81 million and a government-backed loan of $35 million to Vermont Telephone (VTel) for broadband communication, which was represented by some political figures as a “game changer.” This is very good for the 19,000 subscribers in VTel’s 14 town service area, this will provide high speed Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) internet service similar to what ECFiber plans to bring to its 23 towns. For the rest of Vermont’s residents who have no high speed internet, VTel plans to build out its Wireless Open World (WOW) service over the next three years. Wireless may turn out to be a desirable option for some people, but a lot of towers will need to be built before it reaches residents of many ECFiber member towns. ECFiber believes that most Vermonters will prefer the robust quality and capacity of FTTH. Consequently we are moving ahead with our network.

At its July 2010 meeting, the ECFiber Governing Board authorized beginning construction of Phase 1 of our network, and the project is now underway. This phase includes an area within a radius of approximately 10 miles from the central office, located near I89, Exit 3, in Royalton. Application for attachment to the first 500 poles has already been submitted, and the central hub design is underway.

Phase 1 provides the technical and financial foundation for the full 23-town project, so it is a very important first step toward our 23 town goal. This opening phase is funded totally through a private placement of tax-exempt notes, and about 90% of the minimum amount we need has already been committed. ECFiber’s Treasurer, John Roy, is administering the private placement.

In addition, the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA) has requested proposals to provide broadband to 10,000 households in hard to reach areas. Since 54% of these households are in ECFiber’s service area, we have submitted a proposal for 54% of the designated funds. Such an award, along with our Phase 1 project, would contribute to the strength of our public offering to secure private financing for the rest of our project. The VTA is announcing these awards in early October. In an election year, we have to assume that these decisions will be influenced by political, technological, and business considerations.. As we learn more we will let you know how you can express your support for our application.

The graph below shows the current status of pre-registrations by town.

Disclaimer: The data used to generate this graph is constantly changing, and reflects an approximation of the current status of pre-registrations. Every effort is made to make it accurate, but there may be errors.

The household counts are from the 2000 census.