Tell Us Your "Broadband-Divide" Story

Tell us your story about how your work and life will be affected by a broadband connection in your rural community. We may publish your story here with your first name(s) and community unless you ask us to keep that information private.



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Tell us your "broadband-divide" story

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Here is a selection of recently-received stories:

I am an active videoconference user, which I use to connect to my headquarters (in New York) and to our global operations in Europe and Asia.  Videoconferencing requires significant bandwidth in both directions; the cable provider we have is able to provide sufficient downstream capacity, but lacks sufficient upstream capacity for high-quality videoconferences.  Fiber will provide the bandwidth I need.

 

Thinking down the road, as I near retirement age I expect to serve on several Boards of Driectors, and much of the work will be done remotely. Having the right technology infrastructure will allow me to retire comfortably to Vermont, instead of to a more urban (and bandwidth-rich) alternative.

 

Jon in Woodstock

 

 

I live 31 miles from my office and do not use the dial up service that I have at home at all. Our company does 60% of it's work outside the US and the emails are coming in at all hours. If I had access to high speed internet I could spend a little time at home monitoring the incoming mail and preventing some of the daily crises that require me to be at work for long hours every day.

 

John

 

 

We own a cabin in Granville where we come to spend many weekends and several weeks during the year.  We also rent the cabin nearly every weekend that we are unable to use it (as a means to help cover the costs, as well make a few extra dollars!) Many renters come from New York City, and some have inquired from as far away as India and Ireland.  Every international and many of the city folks want to have high speed internet so they can keep in touch with their businesses.  I've had to turn many away, as we don't even have dial up or cell phone service.

 

It would be great to be able to provide this service for our renters and I would certainly benefit by being in touch while away, as well.  The renters are a great source of income and often dine out.  They would be able to locate restaurants nearby, rent skis, etc. if the web was readily available.  It makes good economic sense for attracting vacationers!

 

Jeff in Granville

 

 

I am an International art curator trying to reside in Barnard, Vermont with only a dial-up connection. Needless to say the time involved in downloading photos from around the world is endless.

 

Currently I am working on a project for PEACE with the USA Committee for UNESCO.  I am contacting consulate offices and governments all of over the world and am continually having to apologize for the problems I am encountering trying to use dial-up with their high speed broadband connections.

 

I suggest that it is presenting myself as living in a third world area when I am living in the United States which is supposed to be one of the technology leaders in the world.  I absolutely need the fiber option connection so that I may participate in the world telecommunications highway.

 

Thea in Barnard

 

 

My reasons for wanting broadband are simple and few. My livelihood depends on my ability to do legal research online.  Also, some of the types of filings I submit must be submitted online.  Security is important under these circumstances. I must pay for an out-of-home office so that I can access a broadband connection, since it is not possible to get one connected to my home in West Norwich. This is an excessive cost, particularly in these financially straitened times, and it causes me to be significantly less competitive than others in the same line of work.

 

Ernie in Norwich

 

 

I had Wild Blue.....terrible speed so I upgraded, then I found a cap on download, it slowed down, more $$ to increase speed for 30 days to catch up. Terrible customer service.

 

So I paid $$$$ for Comcast to come up the mountain. Got a really good deal on the first 2 years, but in another year the $$$$ will be out of line even for triple service.

 

Comcast TV, Internet, and Telephone are superb. Right now the price is right. But I love competition. When I see what Fibernet can offer for quality of the product, will triple service be available, and is there a cost savings over Comcast I will decide on who will provide what. Its all about the $$$$ if the products are the same. If one is better than the other then $$$ is second consideration for us.

 

Dave

 

 

I own and operate a small, virtual business from my home on Route 5, East Thetford. We are a consulting company that supports several high-priority government projects, including communication between the Military Health System and Veterans Administration for exchange of medical information critical to our returning veterans (Wounded Warrior) and the collection of information through the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network for Healthcare Associated Infections. In other words, we do some work that many believe benefits the general public. There are about a dozen of us and we rely on high-speed communication for live web session review internally and with clients.

 

Until December 2008, I was using fast, wireless ethernet. The speed was tolerable, the reliability was not. After losing connnectivity with almost every weather event, it was clear to me that I needed reliable broadband to the house or an office where I could have this. I surveyed my neighbors and just before I went out office searching, I learned that one could acquire an individual T1 line, so that's what I did. The raw cost -- $570/month -- is about the cost of a small office, it is rock-solid reliable and saves me the cost/trouble of maintaining a remote office and commuting...

 

Liora in East Thetford

 

 

Last year my wife and I moved to Vermont from Fairfield County, Connecticut.

 

Previously all of my jobs were in the computing and networking industry, and I now consult part time, mainly with international organizations and developing countries.

 

I've lived through and used just about every form of remote connectivity to computers and netowrks since 1966.  It's quite clear to me that modern professionals in many industries, perhaps most industries, really need reliable broadband access if they are to have productive professional lives.  When I work in developing countries and am thrown back into dial-up or congested wireless services in order to do my work, I am painfully reminded about how frustrating things were years ago for me here in the United States.

 

When we were looking for a place to live, one of our most important considerations was the availability of broadband Internet.  We looked for a house and town in an area centered around White River Juniction but stretching perhaps 20-25 miles in all directions from it.  I insisted on verifying that good broadband connectivity existed in each house that we decided to consider seriously.  This eliminated large swaths of New Hampshire, and much of Vermont in our area of interest.  We did eventually move to a house 0.2 miles from U.S. Route 4, and we have Comcast broadband, and we are quite hapy with whre we live, but there were quite a few very nice houses that we simply were not interested in because broadband did not exist there. I don't know if we would have preferred to live in another house or another town, but lack of broadband closed off those choices from the start.

 

If Vermont is to become a state in which independent professionals can live and succeed, then much more of the state needs to have reliable, effective, high speed broadband.  The fiber installation is a one-time capital expense, but has a very long lifetime and provides immediately a path for Internet, television, and telephone services, as well as being available for the many added value services that technological progress will make possible in the long run.

 

George in Woodstock

 

 

I have been using a computer daily since 2003 and have always been on dial-up.

 

i recently worked out that i have spent on average two days every years waiting for stuff to download, both mail and websites. Yes, TWO DAYS per annum. And i don't knit, won't read a book while waiting, just watch the little wheel go round and the bar at the bottom of the page edge its way snail-like to the completion of the download. Very often, 50% of the time in fact, i stop the darn thing and go away. Maybe that's a good thing.

 

The times i've phoned my service provider tech support when somebody sends me a file of 1Mb or larger, and wipe the thing from my inbox unseen, unread. The e-mails i've sent friends, most of whom take offense, asking them not to send me the nine images of animals doing amusing things.

 

It's a test in patience.

 

I hope a fiber cable will bring more satisfaction yet I doubt it.

 

whinge whinge whinge/whine whine whine/cybernoise

 

Thank you for your attention.

 

Alan

 

 

I work as a technical writer for one of the largest computer companies in the industry. I grew up in central VT and have returned (from CA) to live and work full-time from home. Lack of broadband access makes this difficult since my job often involves transferring large file trees back and forth across the network. I have tried satellite, but their FAP rules make doing so impossible. So I often have to make a special trip to find a place with broadband access, such as Borders in W. Lebanon NH. If broadband does not come to this area soon, I will most likely be forced to move.

 

Scott in Stockbridge

 

 

Each generation seems to experience more change than the one before it. Mine has seen the incredible rise of the computer, the internet and the information revolution, among other things. Since moving to Vermont 22 years ago, our household has gone from one phone line to two, to three, to wireless and to cable, mostly to keep up with the demands of our children. My kids don’t know life without the internet, and are constantly looking forward to the ways in which it will be used even more. That is as it should be. Our youngest teenager doesn’t use either the TV or the land line telephone, appliances which we grew up with. Everything is online – all entertainment, all communication, all school work. She talks to her friend in Ireland, face to face, and wants, expects, and will work to get, ever better resolution.

 

Our cable internet service from Comcast is relatively fast, but it is already being pushed to its limits by teenagers who stream audios, videos and who knows what else at prodigious rates. Demand for bandwith can only continue to go up as our kids become adults, get jobs, and take their turn at changing the world. And what of their kids? Fiber optics may now be only a sweet fast connection, but it will very soon become the ONLY way to handle the demands of a new generation. Best we start building it now.

 

Chris in Woodstock

 

 

We currently live outside Vermont, largely because we cannot earn a living there.  We want to move to our Vermont house, but in the 21st century that is not possible without broadband internet connection. Aside from what it means to my wife and me, it deprives the Vermont economy from taxes which our business would generate.  A lack of broadband is an anti economic development policy.

 

Richard

 

 

We moved to Vermont a few years ago, with the intention of Linda, who is in international specialty chemical sales, connecting to her home office in Connecticut.  She does a great deal of traveling, but can otherwise work from anywhere there is a good-quality internet connection.

 

We installed a satellite internet unit ("Wild Blue") and found it adequate for casual use, but technically incapable of connecting to a VPN (virtual private network), a feature which is necessary to totally connect to the home office system.  This fact necessitated Linda renting office space in downtown Rochester where Comcast cable was available, resulting in a significant additional cost.

 

In addition, the satellite system at home costs about three times as much as typical higher-quality fiber access.

 

The future of Vermont, we believe, is partly about telecommuting, and it is important that this capability be available at every home in the State.  It is important for many other reasons as well, for students researching at home, etc. It is also a huge potential energy saver, reducing commuting costs.

 

We urge support for this fiber network.

 

Linda & Brad in Rochester

 

 

We use a satellite for broadband.  However, the satellite is limited to 200 Mb a day and we frequently have loss of service due to atmospheric conditions.  We are at the point with broadband (and cell, land line, electricity, etc) where it no longer makes sense to do business in rural Vermont.   

 

Our customers are annoyed beyond the point of jokes about "pulling tighter on the string to get a good signal"  The rural environment has lifestyle advantages, but the infrastructure handicaps are a severe impediment to doing business in Vermont.

 

David in Vershire

 

 

I am considering moving my a portion of my business from Connecticut to West Windsor, VT, but cannot without high-speed internet availability.

 

Wynn in West Windsor

 

 

We are a European family living in the Boston area and lucky enough to have a second home in Granville, Vermont.  Second home owners aren't the most popular people in Vermont, but we love the land, our neighbors, the mountain air, the absence of malls, and the slower pace of life.  My husband runs a biotechnology company that is searching for cures for Alzheimer's Disease and other neuro-degenerative diseases.  As CEO, he doesn't leave his work behind at the weekend or on vacation, and needs regular, high-speed internet access to get anything done when he is away from the office.  In addition, all three of our children have their homework assigned over the computer and often have web searches as part of their assignments.  Also, my own work requires heavy computer and web use.

 

We currently have HughesNet satellite internet access and it is a constant frustration.  We have frequent crashes, freezes, crawl-speed browsing, and other frustrations with the service.  Working in this environment is highly inefficient -- tasks take far longer than they ought to, and are sometimes simply impossible.  For this reason, when our work has looming deliverables, we often choose to stay in Boston rather than drive up to Vermont, where we would far rather be, for fear that the internet will prevent us from meeting our deadlines.

 

In short, reliable, fast, internet access would allow us to spend far more time in Vermont and would add measurably to our productivity and pleasure.

 

Ali in Granville

 

 

My wife and I are authors.  I work in legal education; she advises public school teachers.  We bought a house in Tunbridge many years ago as a summer retreat at which we could do the writing that the daily routines of our work lives did not permit.  It once was that we could, each summer, bring with us the scores of books, articles, and other materials we needed for our research, but those times are no longer. Our work is now almost entirely dependent on having rapid internet access: reliable enough to permit the uploading and downloading of very large files, fast enough to make online research practical, and with enough bandwidth to permit online realtime conference editing. 

 

None of this is possible (or even close to possible) through the dial up service we relied upon initially for routine communication, and, last summer as my wife was completing a book on mathematics and I an article on the theatrical nature of legal justice, we discovered that it is not possible through wireless broadband (which in our mountainous location turns out to be more unreliable than the dialup) either. 

 

Last summer's experience, filled as it was with unproductive hours waiting for uncertain internet responses, was so very unpleasant that we have considered moving from the lovely setting of a beautiful summer home we both dearly love and to which we had planned on retiring.

 

Jack in Tunbridge

 

 

As a web developer it is important to me to be connected to the Internet.

 

Currently I use satellite Internet, but the service provider caps my bandwidth making it very challenging to maintain my client's web sites, as well as keep my computers' software up-to-date.  The latency of the satellite connection also makes it difficult for me to communicate with my clients.  I do my best to "demystify the Internet" and sometimes that means creating how-to videos to which my clients can refer.  With the aforementioned bandwidth limits, uploading large video files is a nonstarter.  

 

I would like it to also mean that I can use the latest features of Apple's OS X to screen share when a client is having a challenge.  With screen sharing, and remote access, I would be able to control a client's computer (with their permission!) from my home to help them troubleshoot their challenges.  As it is, I either have to speak with them over the phone and hope that my descriptions are understood, or drive -- often times many miles round trip -- to their home to help them.  This costs them more money, me more time and the environment in the form of burned fossil fuels.

 

Rick in Tunbridge

 

 

Our household, (2 adults, 1 teenager), is located in Norwich, Vermont; we pay $90/month for Hughes Net's "premium speed" satellite connection, and we find the internet essentially inacccessible during "busy times".   It's about 6 times as fast as dialup when there aren't a lot of people online, and slows to about the same speed as dialup - or slower - when internet traffic is high. We're a pretty average family, we tend to go online when everyone else does, so -- we either have to wait long periods for big files/sites to upload, or we just give up.

 

I've now discovered that I can't access web seminars/conferences from home (obligatory for my job) as the connection is too slow; this occurred today - I drove a total of an hour, to attend a one hour conference that was scheduled on a day I was off.

 

Our daughter, who is 15, does some of her work at friends' houses who have faster "pipes"; she's in a competitive school where it's expected that everyone has easy, fast internet access, and not having such is a real liability for her, at times.

 

Our house is on a major state highway, 6 miles from a major population center, right in the Connecticut River valley, but it seems we're in a "hole" re access to towers that would give us cleaner, faster internet.  There must be so many like us - it's extraordinarily frustrating that the infrastructure to support universal access to broadband internet isn't already in place.

 

Thanks for "hearing our story"

 

Mimi in Norwich

 

 

I live in the hills here in Sharon, VT and make my living through the Internet, as a freelance editor and writer.  My wife, who is disabled, interacts with the world largely through the Internet.  Currently we are making do with an expensive satellite connection that places stringent limits on our total uploads and downloads.  Videoconferencing is impossible, increasingly large software downloads strain our data budget, and uploading is both painfully slow and strictly limited. 

 

We are hoping to transition to DSL soon -- not hitherto available in our area -- but I foresee that even DSL will soon be strained by the ever-growing needs and opportunities of modern computing and the Internet.  More and more professional and cultural demands are being placed on the network.  In the long run, only fiber will provide the high-speed transparency that will allow us to connect fully and continuously with the outside word for both business and personal purposes.

 

Larry in Sharon, VT

 

 

I bought my first house, where I live now, in Thetford in 2002. I love Thetford because of it's ruralness, connected community, and close proximity to Dartmouth College where I used to work.  I never thought high speed Internet service (DSL and the fiber optic cable type) would take so long to get to Thetford, especially since it had come to other nearby communities.  If I had known this back in 2002, I might have bought a house in another nearby community that has DSL or fiber optic cable service--that's how important high speed access is to me.

 

When I first moved here, I had dial-up.  I wasn't able to access databases, most files or images at all, so I would often travel to Latham library a couple miles away with their wireless Internet service or else head into Hanover, NH, and use my workplace or Baker library's access. About a year and a half ago, I updated to satellite Internet.  My speeds are DSL-like and less, for $70/month, plus the $500 installation fee.  In order to use this service, I had to install the dish about 60 feet away from the house (and buried my cable) in the only place in my yard that had an adequate view of the southern sky where the satellites orbit.  My speeds were half what the service package advertised, so I called up the company and had a rep come out.  The installation guy said my signal might improve if I cut down a few trees on my property, so I saved up some money and did just that for a slightly better signal.  It just so happened that the trees needed to come down anyway. Thank goodness my neighbors trees didn't block my signal...at least not yet.

 

I was willing to spend what it took in order to get close to the Internet speed I need while I live here. I even cancelled my cable TV service and cut back on a few other things to afford the monthly Internet service and installation fee.

 

I am a full-time student who attends UVM, and presently, I commute twice a week up to Burlington.  During the rest of the week, I either work in the area or study at home and access online resources.  I'm online for roughly 12 hours/day.

 

I need high speed Internet to access online study resources such as video demos of surgical procedures and other medical techniques, communicate with students and faculty through Blackboard for online course work and assignments, run searches for evidence-based research through online databases like Medline and CINAHL, and work on my thesis, which means accessing all kinds of online articles, journals, databases, and media.

 

Presently, I cannot watch videos online because my connection is not fast enough, so I have to drive to Latham library or else into Hanover and access Baker Library's network on the Dartmouth campus to watch course-related videos.

 

I've tried it from home and can't view some media materials because it takes hours to download something that is only minutes in length to watch.  Most of the time, I can't even view anything from YouTube without interruptions in the video while I wait for more of it to download.  I use YouTube to watch medical demonstration videos.

 

My mother had fiber-optic cable service in 1997 in St. Pete, FL.  That was 12 years ago.  I never thought I'd still be without it in 2009. I understand the difficulties of Vermont's variable landscape to satellite Internet signals and the low population density of Vermont's rural areas that lead to a lack of fiber optic infrastructure unless there's a foreseeable profit.  At least I'm able to get satellite Internet, which others around here can't because they either can't afford the monthly fee or else their view of the sky is blocked.  Bottom line is, I look forward to the day when I can stay home to access the Internet materials I need and enjoy the same Internet speeds that big city folks and folks 10 miles down the road enjoy--the same speeds that my mother enjoyed 12 years ago.

 

Nancy in Thetford

 

 

I don't have a direct personal story since I have been relagated to the dial up world for my entire Internet access life.

 

However, I feel there is a severe lack of social responsibility on the part of governments and businesses of all types.  

 

Since the blossoming of Internet access and arrival of innumerable web sites, the mandate, spoken and implied is simply, "find us on the Interent at www. etc".  This posture on the part of day to day providers of information  and services (banks, stores, government services) has placed those individuals without fast Internet access at a severe disadvantage.  

 

"Pay your bills on line; communicate with your health care provider via emai; make your medical appointments on line, download your tax forms, register your car."  The list is endless.

 

To add further insult to those without, one need only survery the advertisements in magazines, advertisements that list only a web address.  No physical address or telephone number listed.  Vermont Life Magazine is a prime example; in one issue I counted over 50% of the ads without the concrete information so common only a few years ago.  So I want to visit an organic farm; where is it?  If I could access the farm web site, I could find out.

 

So, bottom line:  every institution across the board says we get info from the Internet, but without high speed access we are crippled.

 

A secondary observation comes from Norway where I visited in 2006 with a group of high school aged cross country ski racers.  We were on a tour in the high country nearly 50km from Lillehammer.  Our cell phone worked; and the small coffee/gift shop at the end of the bus route had a computer with high speed wireless connectivity.  I checked my USA email using a web connection.

 

Obviously Norway recognizes the shift from paper, physical mail, telephone to the Internet for all kinds of activities, commerce, education, government, health.

 

I only hope the commercial dimension of the US communication industry and givernment can come to grips with the reality.  Every person needs high speed Internet, electricity, and a telephone.

 

Dennis in Thetford

 

 

I am a doctoral-level mental-health professional.  Much to the puzzlement of my colleagues, I am always the last one to leave the office at night.  And I am often at the office until late in the evening.  I have explained to them that I only have dial-up at home, which is too slow for me to pursue any of my professional needs online from home.  

 

For example, with dial-up service, online continuing education is too time-consuming.  Online research is too time-consuming.  Accessing insurance company sites for benefits and claims administration is unthinkable via dial-up.  For all of these pursuites, graphics sometimes don't load at all, or take so long as to make the entire enterprise unreasonable.  Even e-mail with colleagues becomes much more time-consuming.  And these are just the professional needs. 

 

I could go on, by listing the various personal pursuits I don't even bother to try to access from home.  All my online shopping, personal e-mail, communication and research regarding hobbies and interests, basically anything and everything that I would like to do online, needs to happen at work or elsewhere because it is simply too slow, or, as noted before regarding graphics, simply not available, using dial-up from home. 

 

I do hope the EC Fiber option can be implemented ASAP.

 

Jo in Thetford Center

 

 

I’m an engineer by training and currently have my own law practice up here in Vermont.  My wife and I have both spent many years working within the telecommunications industry and we certainly understand the value of the “virtual office.”  However, without a broadband connection that provides sufficient access speeds, the virtual office concept is seriously hampered up here in Barnard.  I currently access the net via a fixed wireless broadband connection provided by Hughesnet.  For the price I’m currently paying, I could double the performance through any alternative broadband connection such as DSL, Cable, or Fiber to the Home…if only these options were available. 

 

As far as I’m concerned, the current fixed wireless options just don’t deliver the performance required by today’s net-based interactive applications.  I only wish our Legislators understood the economic price this state is paying by falling so far behind in broadband deployment. 

 

Go ECFiber … you can’t get here soon enough!

 

Mike in Barnard 

 

 

Vermont may be "the provinces" but it doesn't need to be a back-water. The USA is sub-par when it comes to broadband access ... but that doesn't mean that a progressive state like Vermont should be one of the states that keeps our ranking so comparatively low. Vermont has more libraries per capita than any other state so why should we not also be a leader when it comes to all other forms of information and entertainment?

 

I have never been around for an entire Vermont winter but I should imagine that a lot of time is spent in doors, so I cannot imagine being deprived of the best and fastest access to the outside world in such a circumstance.

 

Jeff in Woodstock

 

 

I own a small Bed and Breakfast in Brownsville. Guests frequenting ask about access to high speed as part of their inquiries. Many decide against us because of our absence of the above. Its streaming  availabilty also reduces the necessity of in-room TV's, which is appealing visually. I hope this might be coming our way.

 

Gretel in Brownsville

 

 

I work full time from the home—I’m a freelance editor, the product of two layoffs (after having worked nearly ten years at each job), and I have my own editorial business based in Vershire, Vt. My husband and I moved to Vermont from Connecticut (the land of broadband) three years ago to change our way of life. We pay $50 a month for satellite service, all we can afford for the cheaper of two satellite options. Satellite is slow and has other, connectivity issues. Because publishers are not only laying off editors but also taking advantage of the fact that there are now many more of us seeking freelance work, they are paying at low hourly rates. If I could speed up the signal we get in our home office, I could take on more projects and make enough money to pay our bills.

 

Having broadband is essential to our income and livelihood.

 

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to tell you my story. The bottom line is, if we can’t get broadband here, we’ll be thinking of moving to where we can.

 

Janine in Vershire

 

 

My wife and I pay $90 per month for an enhanced satellite internet package.  It is much better than dial up, but has several drawbacks as well.  Every time it snows (like December-April) we lose internet connection during and after the storm due to snow accumulation and thick cloud cover (not to mention the bi-annual adjustment of the dish due to our deck heaving from the frost.)  We lose it every time a thick band of clouds blows through in the summer as well.  We have several teenagers in the house, and they have no trouble exceeding our "download limit" (200+ MBps) imposed by the satellite company, even on our "enhanced" connection.

 

Until 1987 or so my parents next door were still on a "party" line...so I realize how far out we are from other counties in the state.  That being said my wife and I are both professionals who work for Uncle Sam; and our jobs would be greatly enhanced by a permanent and reliable broadband connection without download limits.  We might even be able to cut out a commute or two to Burlington per week...talk about dividends!

 

During tough economic times in our countries history we have built canals, railroads, and interstates to improve the movement of commerce, ideas, goods, and services.  I propose a construction of a fiber optic "highway" will greatly benefit the state of Vermont in ways that we can only imagine today.  The vast amount of information that will fit over a strand of glass no bigger than a hair on my head will benefit us, our children, their children, and the entire state of Vermont.

 

Matthew and Heather in Williamstown

 

 

Originally we had dial-up, then moved to Verizon DSL, which is now Fairpoint.Net. While my family is grown, and I am semi-retired, I continue to have a need for broadband services at an affordable rate. Never will I regress to dial up. We hope Community Fiber Network will become competitive with my current service so that one service can be untilized for all communications at a resonable rate within State rather than a conglomerate.

 

John  in Sharon

 

 

I am a research scientist and principal investigator with HP Labs, the research arm of HP, currently the world's largest technology company. For the past nine years I've worked full time for HP from Vermont for various labs based in Bristol, UK. In the time I've been with HP obtaining reliable and cost effective broadband access has been extremely difficult; even in 2009 the solutions available are fewer, more expensive and less satisfactory than is the standard in the more populated regions of the USA or indeed in most of the developed world.

 

I am just one example of the type of highly training, high-income employee that Vermont will be rich with if *true* broadband accessibility improves through projects such as ECFiberNet. In the daily performance of my job I collaborate for hours with team members in the UK and elsewhere using video conferencing, "virtual room" (shared desktop and application) technologies, as well as the usual collaboration tools one expects; instant messaging, email, wikis, etc. And that doesn't even take into account my Internet usage to do my actual research!

 

Collaborating in this fashion without fiber is extraordinarily difficult. Current terrestrial wireless technologies have made my work possible; it is not an exaggeration that the availability of a particular provider has literally helped me keep my job. But it is not fiber and presents neither the cost/performance or reliability of fiber.

 

Vermont and similar rural areas of the United States need the stimulus that only true broadband via fiber can provide if we expect to be competitive moving forward.

 

John in Norwich

 

 

I am a small business owner in rural Vermont, I run two web-based companies. Being a virtual company has allowed me to run my business in many ways that were not possible only a few years ago. With the current economic climate, sometimes I feel that I am one of the few businesses that are growing and hiring... or trying to.

 

We run our meetings with Skype and take advantage of their low cost telephone fees. We  video conference and screenshare with customers with GoToMeeting. We provide end user support through Gmail and training videos through Screencast.com and podcasts. By leveraging the web and the many tools now available I am able to run two world-wide businesses with employees, contractors and customers in several continents.

 

The only problem is I need a robust internet connection to do it.

 

I pay $100 a month for a commercial Huges satellite dish at home (my companies operate 24 hours a day) and am forced to rent office space in a local town purely to have access to a DSL connection.

 

The web is accelerating the speed at which business is done around the world, but Vermont is getting left further and further behind.

 

I only hope that a point won't be reached when "catch up" becomes impossible for our state. At that point, I might well be forced to move to a 1st world state just to grow my business.

 

Barrie in Strafford

 

 

I teach computer science at Dartmouth.  When we moved here, we found to our shock that we only got a 26K connection on dial-up.  I had to tell my students that I would not be able to look at any non-plain-text emails they sent me overnight, but that I'd have to wait until the next day when I went in to the college.  Of course, computer science students do most of their work at night.  Likewise, when I wanted to download research papers, data to analyze, visualizations produced by my graduate students, etc., I had to be sure to do that before coming home, or else I was out of luck until the next day.

 

We have since obtained a satellite connection, which has somewhat mitigated the problem, but I still try to schedule most of my access to be during the day, and find myself missing things at night.  The satellite connection is just not good enough to support rapid scanning through the research literature, transferring experimental data either direction, interacting with modern on-line analysis tools, and so forth.

 

We have a one year old daughter, and would love to be able to video-chat with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of whom live in other states and most of whom have high-speed connections that would support that.  For that matter, even sharing digital photos is something that we don't try to do with just our satellite connection.

 

Chris in Strafford

 

 

I am currently in  school to become a teacher, and one of the many reasons I and my wife need a fast reliable connection is the amount of work I need to do at home. Teachers, administrators, students of all ages require a reliable internet connection in order to get the information needed to complete and/or design assignments. More and more educators need to teach to 21st century standards in order to keep pace with the rest of the world; students need to access on-line resources for research; parents need access to teachers and administrators. Without these tools all suffer the loss of connectivity and ultimately students pay the price with less than acceptable available information.

 

Another important factor is the ability to be able to work from home. My wife works from home several times a month but absolutely requires on-line access in order to do her job. In this economic climate it is vital that our work is accessible, professional, and timely, be it from work or home. We can ill afford to have a problem that would reflect negatively on job performance. Reliable Internet service plays a substantial role in maintaining a high level of service to employers.

 

Jon in Barnard

 

 

My family resides in a rural section of the Town of Hartford, just 3 miles outside the "downtown" area.  There is no cable television line on our road and DSL is still unavailable.  I am told that DSL would be available by the simple turning of a switch, however the politics involved will not allow it to happen.  We have the option of a satellite connection, but I have a fundamental problem with paying separate bills for land line phone, cell phone, satellite television and now satellite Internet connection.  (My cell phone reception is not good enough to use in place of the land line.) All totaled probably close to 230 dollars per month.  In this economy we simply can't justify it.  

 

My wife and I both attend college classes and my children would benefit from on-line research for school.  With the current dial-up connection we have, it is next to impossible.  Even if the connection isn't lost, the time involved makes it less than productive or practical.  To add insult to injury, about every six months we receive notifications from the phone company advertising DSL now in "your area".  When you do the research or call them the standard answer is, "no it not available where you are.  If you would like we can put you on a call list for when it is."  We have heard this since 2004.  The most frustrating part is that there are many areas of the state that are far more rural than ours that have some kind of established high speed broadband access.

 

Anonymous in Hartford

 

 

My Post Office address is in one Town, my telephone exchange is in another, and my house is physically in yet another Town.  For Vermont, this is not an uncommon situation. Dial-up is not an option.  Since we are at the very end of Royalton's phone line, any little amount of "chatter" or static on the line and our signal would be lost. So we went with a satellite provider at $69.95 a month.

 

Recently, my ability to download an attachment slowed to a crawl and then stopped. I called the provider to ask what went wrong.  The Earthlink representative (now Hughes Net) informed me of their new policy, FAP, their acronym for "Fair Access Policy." I had exceeded the amount of time allowed me to perform downloads, my "Fair Access", and as a consequence I was put on "slow" access for 24 hours!  This is the kind of service I get for my $840.00 a year!

 

John in Randolph Center

 

 

I have lived in Pomfret all my life, with the exception of the college years and few other years.  I married another life long Pomfret resident and we are settled in with our 2 children in North Pomfret.  

 

Our only option for internet access at home has been dial up or satellite.  Up to now, I have been struglling through with just dial up. As a Graphic Designer, I have the need to send and receive relatively large files for my work.  

 

We had our second son in May of 2008 and I have recently found the perfect job doing graphic design for a local company in Woodstock.  Fortunately, they are flexible enough to allow me to work a few days in the office and a couple days from home, so that I can watch the 2 kids at the same time.  

 

IN addition to having 2 children, I had knee surgery last week that has me confined to my home for a while. I finished a design for a web page on Sunday and uploaded the file from home for approval... - and after waiting about an hour and a half for the 5MB file to upload - it thankfully went through.  I received approval and the client wanted to original file uploaded for them to apply the web programming.  I spent 3 1/2 hours on Monday night and about 6 hours on Tuesday attempting to upload the 28MB file that timed out everytime.  I still have not gotten the file to the client and have to hand deliver it today.  The client is aggrevated that they do not have the work that they have paid for and approved.

 

Needless to say, I am EXTREMELY frustrated with the internet connection.  Yesterday I called the Hughes.net satellite internet provider to see what my options were.  I will have to pay $400 to have the satellite installed and $70 a month for the service, that is still not comparable to hi-speed broadband, from what I understand.  In addition, I have to enter into a 24 month contract to receive this service.  

 

A Fiber optic network can not come fast enough to our rural communities -  Not only for some of our careers from home, but also for the resource of our children.

 

Marie in North Pomfret

 

 

We live in a very rural area with no cable or any access to fast internet.  We do have dial up, but it is so restrictive and slow that we only use it for "emergencies".  We feel significantly cut off from the world, not being able to send photos of our new baby to relatives or view content of emails as it should be viewed.  Also, downloading music or software is impossible.  We constantly have questions about things to which we could easily find the answers online, however, we don't even try because the dial up is so frustrating to use.  Access to information seems like such a basic issue and when you don't have access to it, it is quite surprising how much it affects your life.  Recently, I decided to try and do my taxes online.  A process that should have taken half an hour took two hours due to connectivity issues.  

 

We are contantly being "kicked off" of our dial up connection.  If I had a fiber optic connection, I could work from home when the baby is sick, I could do wonderful and creative things with family pictures (maybe even have a blog to keep relatives up to date!), I could download the music that I want and even shop from home instead of venturing out and spending all weekend tracking down what I need with a baby in tow.  Having fast internet will change the way we live and I hope that it comes soon!

 

Becky in Chelsea

 

 

I would like very much to rent a room in my house to a Vermont Law School student but our slow dialup will make it unsuitable for a student needed good internet service.

 

Jinny in Royalton

 

 

Whilst I do not live in Pomfret full-time, I would like to voice my issues regarding the lack of broadband access.   In this day an age, I cannot conduct my work without having broadband access to stay in contact with clients and transmit important documents.  As much as I would like to spend more time in VT, I cannot until I know I can have reliable high-speed access.  I am sure the same applies for the countless other visitors who may have the opportunity to spend more time in VT and spend more out of state dollars in VT, but can’t because they need access to files at the home office or need to review larger files that are just not downloadable using dial-up service.  Unfortunately, VT is going to be left out of the New Economy if something is not done to provide broadband access.

 

I can’t even send pictures of the grandkids to my dad!

 

Biria in Pomfret

 

 

As a writer/photographer/editor, our dial-up only service makes it all but impossible to send and receive files in a timely manner. Some sites simply will not work with our dial-up service. The best connection we can get is 26.4 Kbps; a Verizon service tech told me in 2006 that the wires to our area in Vershire date back to the 1950s, and that we can never hope for a better connection. Our server confirmed this. Accessing archived audio goes like this: it takes up to two minutes to hear a few seconds of audio; it once took about two hours to listen to a short interview. Even though I do other work at my desk while a file is either sent or received, this is not an efficient way to work.    

 

Douglas in Vershire

 

 

In these challenging economic times I have lost one job and been refused two others because I don't have high speed Internet, a requirement for online teaching software.  This has been an extemely costly deficiency for me and I am at a point where I am having to consider moving to another state where I'll be able to work.  I also have attempted to run a business from home, but the slow connection speed and the need to tie up our one phone line with the Internet for hours and hours has made that impossible.  We can keep the rural Vermont atmosphere without living in the dark ages and driving business out of state!  Vermont needs reliable high speed access now.  The recent problems with DSL from Fairpoint, for those who had ACCESS to that, clearly demonstrate that they can't be relied upon to meet the increasing need for high speed access.  We don't even have reliable phone service where we are!  We desperately need fiber optic and it cannot come fast enough for those of us who have jobs hanging in the balance waiting for it!

 

Diana in Strafford

 

 

Working in health care and being a busy mom and farm wife access to the internet Is important. My job requires continueing education and many options are available on internet but need the speed for efficiency. My only option at this time is dial up. As slow as can be!!!!. I am at the very end of DSL service not much of an option there I might as well be on dial up.  I work as a major hositpal and have broadband but should not use this for personal use. I on occassional could use connect to my work server but this is impossible from home.

 

I have purchased a laptop to fill in some of these gaps but to get the kids in the car go to the library in the limited hours that it is open and try to accomplish anything is difficult. Sooo needless to say a fiber network available to me at my home would significantly improve life for me and my children. Remember our children are so far behind others in schools that are working on computers regularly. My child at this time has little availablity at school or home and will not have access until she is in high school. In this day and age we need to be connected.

 

Kathy  in Strafford

 

 

I am enrolled in two on-line courses while I'm working toward my Master's degree. I had dial-up internet for a while, but it took way too long to do anything and I constantly had to attach documents which could not be sent, without a major crash. So, I gave up on that and now I have to do all my Master's work at my job. This means very late hours and major distractions from work sometimes. It is assumed that I will be able to quickly check e-mail and reply to my professors, but this is not the case because I do not have a reliable internet connection at home. I am making do for now, but this issue is truly interfering with my education.

 

Meg in Tunbridge

 

 

Reliable, affordable broadband will help me to simultaneously be employed and have a reduced carbon footprint—a ‘local’ way of coping with two enormous long-term problems that face our country and the planet. Two years ago, I changed jobs and became self-employed. This saves 250 miles/week or 13,000 miles annually of driving just in the Upper Valley! I use the internet a lot to do my work—research, sending text documents and photographs. I currently pay $80/mo for phone and dial-up; adding an additional $60 for satellite isn’t financially feasible at this point. A café with free high speed service is a 20 minute drive.   The arrival of locally installed, all-weather-dependable, financially affordable broadband will make a positive change. My work will be more efficient, my income more secure, and my carbon footprint appropriately reduced.

 

Liza in East Barnard

 

 

Have you ever tried to book a flight online using dial-up?  Whenever my wife tries to schedule a trip on Orbitz or the Jet Blue site, she brings a book so she can read while the screens come up verrrrry slowly.

 

Want to check your bank balance online?  Same thing.  I usually have computer games handy while I wait for each page to load.

 

It wouldn't be so bad if there were other ways to accomplish the same objective. Unless you want to keep paying fees for phone support, there really aren't any.

 

I would love to work at home occasionally.  Everyone else on my staff can do that.  I can't because it would take forever to use email, download files, and it's impossible to use conference programs such as Adobe Connect.

 

Everyone should have his or her virus software and operating system updated for security reasons.  I have to be careful when I do this because downloading this type of software can take hours on dial-up.  Occasionally, I have had to leave my computer on as important security updates downloaded.  During this process, I can't use my phone.  And, I have to make sure I do this downloading either before 9 am or after 9 pm when rates are lowest.

 

Dial-up makes you a second class citizen.  

 

Charles in Brookfield

 

 

Most of us on this hill in Brookfield use Wild Blue and pay too much for it! By relaying a signal from the Brookfield school to a relay house to our silos -the service could be available to customers from Killington to Camel's Hump.  This was discussed with the techs that have the service at Brookfield school! By giving service to one relay house, service could be offered to many, many Vermonters by accessing a box on our silos!!

 

B in Brookfield

 

 

I own a home based business in Brownsville. At first I got dial up for internet but could not live with it.

 

I spent the money and bought a dish system that was frequently down with support in India.  It was horrible.

 

I then changed to Wavecomm, and when it worked I was happy but I could go several days with no service and no support.

 

Insurance experts say that something like 80% of small businesses that have a fire never reopen because of the interruption in their business.  Having no internet was like 'death by a thousand cuts'. 

 

I then went back to a dish, but frequent lightning strikes and down time caused me to try Verizon Wireless Air card which has worked well for me, but is still not as fast as I would like.

 

Vermont needs reliable high speed internet as soon as possible.  I hope our elected officials understand the importance.  This will create jobs.  Jobs are good.

 

Dana in Brownsville

 

 

I don't "need" broadband, but I sure do WANT it!  I currently have Wild Blue satellite access.  It is faster and better than dial up but quickly shows its limitations. I do many things at work that I should and would prefer to do at home.  More importantly, my co-workers whose work functions are similar to mine work at home when the weather, personal or family illness, personal business, etc requires, but I must drive 60 miles round trip and/or make other arrangements under such circumstances, sometimes at the peril of my life in freezing rain.  I will probably retire before broadband makes it to Vershire but younger folks will continue to either drive in bad weather or loose work.  Then too, there are frivolous things I'd like to do on-line if I had a fast connection.  There is much I like about life being like it was in the "olden days" in Vershire, but the lack of broadband isn't one of them and a broadband connection would enhance everything old and new.

 

Cheryl in Vershire

 

 

By way of background, and for those who don't know, podcasting is a type of Internet broadcasting, where users subscribe to audio and video content that is delivered automatically to their computers (usually via the iTunes music store) whenever a new episode of a show that they subscribe to is released.  My podcast features the top performance poets working in the world today, and we are usually one of the top three poetry podcasts featured on iTunes.  Over the past three years we have featured over 200 individual poets, released over 500 shows, and provided well over 2 million downloaded files to our subscribers.  Currently, our subscribers download over 100,000 shows every month.

 

As you can tell by these numbers, our show is a very successful and valued part of the literary and artistic life of the Internet.

 

Unfortunately, the movement of audio and video files across the Internet is very bandwidth intensive.  A typical show on my channel runs about 10MB, and we release three shows each week.  For every show we release, I need to download and review up to a dozen submissions.  Between the number of files I need to upload and download every week my Internet usage is higher than the typical user, by a large degree.  Unfortunately, we live in rural Tunbridge, Vermont, where not only is wired broadband unavailable, but we have found that even the phone lines are too noisy and unreliable to make a dial up connection feasible.

 

In taking on the responsibility to produce and release the podcast, I knew I'd have to find other options, and I quickly discovered that the only technically available solution was the use of a HughesNet satellite connection.  This connection is currently costing us $70 a month, and that is a relief from the $90 it cost for the first year, when we needed to purchase the equipment. 

 

But the cost of this system is not the only drawback.  By its nature satellite Internet connections are very unreliable, often going out in times of bad weather, and even going out for no discernible reason.  Download speeds are significantly slower than other broadband options, and upload speeds are even slower.  Perhaps the biggest drawback is a daily bandwidth limit that is placed on us by HughesNet, that shuts down our service for 24 hours if we ever exceed their threshold.

 

For several years now we have been living with this very bad service, and hoping desperately that the rural broadband initiative in Vermont will gain enough traction to make the production of my podcast much less of a struggle.  I'd like to take this opportunity to strongly encourage any policy makers out there to accelerate this process, as part of the necessary infrastructure our country needs.

 

Even though I know of few other people in our area whose needs are exactly the same as ours (podcasters are a rather rare lot), I hear constantly from our friends and neighbors how difficult it is to find reliable methods to connect to the Internet in our rural communities.  This is a critical challenge for Vermont, that must be addressed.

 

Thanks for reading my story, and for all your efforts in this area.

 

Wess in Tunbridge

 

 

Our story is simular to others, We are a family of six, we would love to get a higher speed internet, we used to use DSL before we moved to this area, which was way faster than the dial up we are stuck with now for the past four years. ECFiber could help us in so many ways, from helping the kids access the web for school, consolidating our bills by combining our bills. internet, phone, and tv. I Know my wife and kids would love to be able to access the web and be able to download music faster than one song per half hour. (if they are lucky and don't get booted off) without it right now, we don't use the computer much anymore as everything just takes way to long.

 

Our dial up connection usually runs in the low 20s. updates take forever. Maybe we could get some help from the stimulus package to help get many of americans reconnected with the internet. I know if I had faster internet connection We would likely buy a new computer, shop more online, surely others would do the same. On the lighter side of life, I would love to be able to connect my game system to the web, and play games with others online. ECFiber is our only hope, we have left. the only options we have right now is dial up, or satillite and their prices are ridiculous.

 

Adam and Cristal

 

 

I work at home and rely solely on the internet for my business.

 

In other words, my internet connection brings in out-of-state money that I spend here in Vermont. The better my connection the more money I can make, and spend, here in Vermont.

 

There are thousands of others like me. The out-of-state money we bring here stimulates the Vermont economy and helps provide jobs for Vermonters.

 

Meanwhile, Vermont's beautiful landscape remains intact. If this isn't a win-win situation for Vermont I don't know what is.

 

Robert in Sharon

 

 

I am tired of paying a large monthly bill for limited broadband service.  As a self-employed photographer who works at home, I increasing rely on the internet to distribute images (large files that require bandwidth) from my archive of more than 200,000 black and white photographs that I have made in about forty countries over the past thirty years.  To live in Vermont is sometimes a real challenge and for me the fiber network would ease the burden of living remotely while improving the economic circumstances of my family.  It would connect our remote house to the world in a truly significant way.

 

My wife is a doctor and she is increasingly dependent on the internet to improve her practice and for research.  Our sixteen year old is coming of age in world that is profoundly changing and his future requires the skills he develops by using the internet.  Having a fiber network may even make the difference between his ultimately leaving the state and being able to stay here.  Let's get on board a train to a brighter future for our beautiful remote communities.

 

It just seems like a no brainer to build a network ultimately owned by our local communities providing a fast on-ramp to the information highway.

 

Let's create an income stream for our town instead of bleeding ourselves to ship profits to far away corporate entities.

 

John in Bethel

 

 

I represent a NJ Ski club with a lodge in the Granville gulf. we have been a member of the community for over 40 years. We have, like all ski clubs faced challenges attracting new, younger members to our lodge. We have deducted that young people are more "connected" and require wireless connectivity while at the lodge. Additionally many older members including myself, find it difficult to stay in touch with the office and would spend more time at the lodge if we could stay connected via internet and cell phone. We feel fiber optic cables in the valley would attract more members and increase lodge usage.

 

Please hurry!

 

Archie in Granville

 

 

My location in a Vermont valley/ravine only gives me a dial-up connection for Internet service.  Due to the lovely forest I live in the ability to connect to satellite is tenuous.

 

I am an adult student.  Most adult students need to rely on the internet for correspondence with professors, classmates and class work. This is a challenge for me.  Research is also limited and downloading required reading material is a huge time consumption.

 

The amount of time used to access anything on dial up for me is incredible.  My ability to be a savvy internet user is lost when working with dial-up.  Audio, video footage, streaming and all the technology that goes with the internet somewhere has gotten lost in my working knowledge as a dial-up user.   

 

I cannot use the internet and the phone at the same time.  It is very inconvenient to use a help desk when online.  For example, recently, I needed to make flight reservations and had some difficulty.  To get the needed help one has to disconnect, make a phone call and then reconnect to the website again hoping the advice you were given will work.  Could I have made the arrangements by telephone?  Yes.  But I discovered there was an extra $20.00 per charge, per traveler, to do so by phone.  And the time used to do these arrangements by dial-up was extraordinary, valuable time lost for other activities.

 

The amount of time using the internet takes is a concern for me.  It limits your desire to use the internet for whatever reason in an age when our culture through business, schools, banks, etc. encourages you and rewards you for using it.  As noted before, my education is effected by dial-up.  My bank wants me to do my transactions with them on the internet.  My ability to be a careful consumer by internet is limited.  Dial-up cuts off the ability of others to call in to me - we have one phone line.

 

Not too many years ago I didn't feel as hampered by being a dial-up user as I do now.  But technology has moved forward without me, while I am left behind.  I am looking forward to ECFiber Network and its ability to connect me to the world as others are connected.

 

Anonymous in Thetford Center

 

 

Cloudy days are the bane of my virtual life!  I need Fiber!

 

Deecie

 

 

we pay 20 dollars a month for dial up. Wouldn't mind something a little faster. Our lives do not revolve around the internet. When needed will use it at work for work related stuff and our email.  Because of where we live the access to fiber-optic will cost much money. Not sure if we can afford it and not sure what the payments will be to be on such a system. Also if the moneys to raise this is taken as taxes, ouch! So we will do okay with what we have and what we may have.

 

Larry in West Windsor

 

 

We fell that we are paying to much for our connection for internet, phone and tv and want to pull all 3 togather we pay $65 for phone and internet and $63 for tv so we feel that ECFiber will save us some cash

 

Anne in White River Junction

 

 

I live in a corner of Strafford over by Vershire and have a Vershire telephone exchange. The phone lines are in a condition such that DSL is not possible. I go to a local library to communicate by e-mail. Since I can not impose on them any meaningful on-line work is impossible and it takes far longer to accomplish simple research and communication tasks than it would if a fiberoptic line were in place.

 

Bruce in South Strafford

 

 

I live in a remote part of Norwich with little population but much need. I am an artist and photographer, mostly working at home. Due to some health issues, I am not always able to go somewhere else to access high-speed internet, nor is it convenient to do so. I have to drive 6-8 miles to the nearest library, and can only take a small laptop which doesn't have all the information to run my business. I have a web site (www.creaturekinships.com) which takes forever, on flaky dial-up to revise, and downloading updates and security measures can take hours. Since I work with art and photography and am a moderator on a photography web site (NatureScapes.net), I can't do my work efficiently as it also takes several minutes to get images...IF the phone line doesn't crash while downloading (which it often does.) I typically need to look at and comment on 5-15 images a day. I would be looking at more like 20-30 images if I could.

 

I just read in this evening's newspaper that this project will not be funded by the "Economic Stimulus Package", and I think, as was mentioned in the article, that Vermont will suffer business losses without critical high-speed reliable internet.I know I will. I DO feel, too, that those of us who are in the remotest areas will be the last to get high-speed, if we get it at all, and ironically, we are the ones who need it the most.  People in populated areas usually have other convenient options. There is also the issue of those of us with disabilities and lack of mobility. The internet can be a resource like no other for business and social contact, but it is, at present, extremely frustrating to work with such an outdated inefficient dial-up system. I hope these issues are taken into consideration should this project get funded.

 

Thank you, everyone who has put so much effort into this project so far.  I hope it can be seen through.

 

Cynthia in Norwich

 

 

I have worked from home doing medical transcription for nearly 18 years now. In the early years of my business I had to drive to doctor's offices, clinics, and hospitals to pick up tapes to bring home, transcribe, print, then drive back to deliver my product. Medical research was limited to what reference books I had in my home office.

 

In the mid-90s AOL was available as a very slow dial-up which allowed me to research new drugs and procedures, confirm spelling of the names of other doctors, medical procedures or drugs dictated by the doctors.

 

Several years later Comcast offered broadband services with lightening speeds that allowed me to work more effectively. I was now able to transmit the work transcribed back to the healthcare providers via the Internet. However, the Internet made it possible for medical transcription (and many other services) to be done off-shore much cheaper for companies. There was still plenty of work for me, but as the off-shore work was done cheaper it meant that I still make the same amount of money as I did in the early 90s.

 

In recent years to make my dollar stretch further I have begun eliminating or reducing fixed expenses. I switched from Comcast to Verizon for DSL service. I soon found out that because my home office is too far from the Verizon hub to use connection speeds that were fast enough to allow me to work effectively. Since I am paid per line of words transcribed speed is an important thing for my business. Finally I switched back to Comcast and at the same time eliminated the phone company and now I have Internet, phone and TV all on one bill, a little over $100 a month.

 

In addition to the business I started in the early 90s I have worked for a national transcription company since 1999. At present I wake up at 4:00 a.m. and go to work in my nightclothes and slippers for hospitals in San Diego, California, transcribing ER reports for them throughout their nighttime hours. I do not have to go out on these cold winter mornings and scrape the windshield and warm up the car. I use no gas to go to work. Although when we have no electricity I am able to fire up a generator and continue working, in my slippers.

 

I firmly believe that there are many jobs in the United States that could be done from home. Saving so much money on gas. I chose to work at home because I did not want to have someone else raising my children.

 

Although at present I do have a stable Internet service, I am supporting the ECFiber network for Vermont, so that my neighbors can enjoy the quality of life I have had here on my hill in Woodstock, Vermont.

 

Nancy in Woodstock

 

 

My wife and I are members of the demographic "part-time resident, homeowner, taxpayer," in Chelsea.  We live in what had been a Schoolhouse from 1843 to 1953, far enough from town that we cannot access the high-speed service that goes past our house on Route 110 in a fiber cable put there by the phone company, two companies ago.  Instead i must dial in to Sovernet, a few times usually, in order to get connected to a tedious, outmoded, modem link.  For television we must use a dish; each winter the ice and snow have shut it down.

 

I am a writer, my wife is an artist.  We are not tourists, we work at home.  We have many friends in Chelsea, and we see the town struggling to be fair and equitable in its services, but hobbled by two-tier access to the internet, so that some citizens can be in touch with each other and the town this way, but others not.   We are committed to the future of our town both for its own sake and as a model for the State and the country.   We see the absence of total broadband coverage as infrastructure improvement that comes first, since improvements in educational infrastructure, business infrastructure, medical care infrastructure and green environmental infrastructure are all dependent upon this technology even today, and all will be more dependent on it in the future.

 

We have neighbors who recall the arrival of Washington Electricity Cooperative power lines on our road in the early 1940s, a product of the New Deal invention of the Rural Cooperative, itself a re-emergence of the notions that motivated our town's farmers to be active in the Grange a century and more ago.  We were among the first people in town to join ECFiber, and we hope to see the day when it becomes WEC.2, a rural cooperative for the internet.

 

Robert in Chelsea

 

 

A few years ago, we decided to "try" a dial-up connection to the internet, primarily our son was needing more access to do research for school projects.  It was a nightmare!  We were only getting about 28 kbps which is twice as bad as others with the typical slow dial-up connection!  Our phoneline would have to be tied up all night long just to get our regular system updates downloaded - and then just to find that in the morning, the download ran into an error; so tying up the phone all night long was needless.  We don't have access to cable where we live, so that wasn't an option.  Last year, we finally decided to take the plunge and purchase satellite internet connection.  It's around $50 or $60/month for the slowest speed package - which is many times over faster than the dialup, but still nothing in comparison to broadband or a T1 line.  My husband is in real estate and with the price of gas, we decided that if we had access to a reasonable speed internet connection at home, he could save gas m

 

oney by not having to drive to the office about 30 minutes away just to use the internet (which real estate brokers today totally depend on viewing home listing on the web).  We found the satellite system speed reasonable, but many times, we ran into no signal due to back weather and then my husband would be forced to drive to the office to try to do any work for that day.  Satellite is better than dial-up, but the cost and so-so speed is questionable and we're really not saving as much money as we might by not having to "drive" to the office just to have better access to the internet.

 

Rosemary in Tunbridge

 

 

Our son is 21.  He grew up in a house with DSL broadband.  Once he went off to college, we built a new house in Thetford where we rely on Wildblue satellite internet.  Wildblue measures how much we download. Should we exceed our allocation, they disconnect our service.  Our family makes an effort to keep this in mind.  Our son limited his downloads for most of his recent Christmas holiday.  In his last four days at home, he got bored.  He downloaded lots of video files.  We exceeded our allocation and Wildblue turned off our broadband.  

He went back to school, and the rest of the family suffered the outage for over 30 days.

 

At first I was angry at him.  Then I started to see that he grew up on the internet.  He suckled on DSL in high school.   At college, he feeds on true high speed broadband.  But the old folks at home are stuck with Wildblue.  At least they have indoor plumbing.  High speed broadband is key to our son's social, cultural and academic life.  It will be central to his employment when he graduates.  Our son loves Vermont and he would like to work and raise a family here after college.  But I expect that he will need to move away to a place with true high speed internet, unless we build the necessary infrastructure at home.

 

The ECFiber initiative is essential to stop the out-migration of young people from Vermont.  Broadband is important to middle age people, but it is like air and water to young people.  A Vermont without true high speed broadband will become a Vermont with not enough ambitious and productive young people.

 

Expansion of the first generation broadband (cable, DSL, satellite, cellphone-based) that is available in some parts of Vermont is a temporary stopgap measure.  These approaches fall far short of what young people (and the employers of young people) want to do with the internet today and in the future.  It is short-sighted for Vermont to continue to invest in these older approaches as the rest of the world moves ahead.  We will surely be left behind if we take this approach. Some decision makers are blinded by their own limited experience of the internet.  They compare DSL to their experience of dial-up.  They should ask the advice of young people who grew up with DSL in their homes.  These young people can see much more clearly.  High speed broadband is certainly a part of their future, but just maybe, not here in Vermont.  I wholeheartedly urge my representatives to fund and build the ECFiber system without delay.

 

Pau in East Thetford

 

 

My wife and I really want to move to Vermont to finish our professional careers and retire. The internet has become an integral part of our professional and personal lives. Lack of a wide spread affordable high speed connection greatly limits our choices and ability to make this transition.

 

Everyday the Internet shrinks the world providing education, entertainment, information and services that has the possibility to enrich and enlighten anyone with the proper pipe and a computer. Much of Vermont is missing the boat without the connectivity ecfiber is attempting to provide.

 

I earnestly hope some of the money in the just passed stimulus bill will make it's way into building this fiber network in east central Vermont. If so we'll be one step closer to our dream and Vermont will be a better place for it economically and intellectually.

 

Don in Stockbridge

 

p.s. My sincere thanks to the individuals spearheading this effort. Stay the course!

 

 

I live in rural Vershire.  My work is thirty-five miles away.  The agency that I work for is trying to move toward “greener” practices and to downsize its expensive office space in an effort to save resources.  I am unable to work efficiently from home with dial up service.  This problem is exacerbated by the fact that my current  phone service has proven to be extremely unreliable.  The old copper wiring is failing causing the phone service to fail.  Dial up makes it extremely difficult to fully access the internet and for me and my neighbors to be full participants in the twenty-first century.

 

Broadband would be a great boon for me and my neighbors.  I hope that supports will be forthcoming to assist our small town to be more competitive in the future.  Small hill towns like Vershire have no town hub and few businesses.  We become dormitory towns.  Broadband would make the town more attractive to individuals seeking to make a life change.  We offer many of the attractions that epitomize the classic rural experience.  Having broadband would give struggling small rural towns and a much needed advantage.

 

Tara in Vershire

 

 

We live in Thetford on route 5, a main Vermont road, having no high-speed connection. Unthinkable in this day and age. While our son was deployed to Iraq, pictures from him were impossible to download in an acceptable amount of time. The anticipation of seeing those pictures were undermined by the slowness of the download time. Not to mention the time the phone line was busy by downloading.

 

We do  try to keep all the system updates on the computer current. We have wasted over 12 hours downloading ONE update because of dial-up. The server disconnected as we were in our 12th hour of downloading thus loosing the whole update. This is also a waste of money for  local call time to FairPoint. What did we get...NOTHING but aggravation.

 

We shop on-line but the slowness keeps us from spending more when it takes 30 minutes to order from one site.

 

We have discussed getting a satellite hook-up but have been expecting ECFiber, comcast, fairpoint etc to go through in a timely manner by our house. We are located 6 miles from Fairlee (Fairpoint) and Norwich (?). Why the slowness of any of these high speeds????

 

Take action-----NOW

 

Laurel in Thetford

 

 

Having moved to West Windsor two years ago we immediately found out that getting high speed Internet service was not possible.  Initially, we used dial up - very slow and unsatisfactory.  This past year we switched to a satellite service.  This was faster but unreliable as we continue to experience frequent dis-connects while using it.

 

My wife is a speech and language pathologist and to maintain her license she takes courses annually with many of these on the internet.  With such unreliable service this makes her work more difficult to complete in a timely fashion.  It also hinders her ability to do research that is often needed in her field.  For my part, I am on several non-profit boards and the main communication is by e-mail.  Again, this is a problem as the internet service cannot always be relied on.

 

However, my main worry is for the school children and local businesses.  The children will eventually enter a world that is very reliant on the internet for communication and research.  If they do not have access to dependable, affordable, high speed internet, they will be at a disadvantage as they enter college or the workplace. Business is also reliant on good internet service and without it they are at a disadvantage against their competition.  New business will be reluctant to enter the local market as other locations provide the service which they require to conduct business.

 

In summary, in today's environment internet service is a necessity in many aspects of our educational, business and personal lives.  Until such time as reliable, affordable, high speed service becomes available we will remain severely handicapped.

 

J. H. in West Windsor

 

 

I'm another of the flatlanders with a hilltop home in Vermont; my wife and I spend probably 3 out of 4 weekends in Thetford year-round and typically 3 full weeks a year.  That's the way it's been since 2000.  I'm an engineer with a primary home in the Boston area and I'd love to be able to spend more time up north.  Communication is the barrier.  I moved from dial-up to satellite internet about 2 years ago and that was a blessing; for once I could practically stay in touch with things while in Vermont.  But it's limited to keeping up with email, the speed and latency are annoying and then there are the regular weather-related outages.

 

With a fiber connection, I can imagine the possibility of Vermont becoming our primary home.  My career is such that I could work 1 or 2 days a week from up north, staying in touch with colleagues in Massachusetts and elsewhere via web meetings and video/audio links.  This would bring income into the state, to the benefit of others in the area.

 

Dan in Thetford Center

 

 

I am a physician who lives in a beautiful rural valley so can get neither cellphone nor high speed internet. The lack of cellphone in annoying, but my satellite linked beeper lets my patients find me.

 

However, as a doctor, I am  required to keep on learning new information and surgical  techniques to keep my license. As a surgeon, my learning is done by watching videos of surgeries and doing interactive work. All companies and universities who sponsor this learning ASSUME that I can see the videos!! OOPS! . Even at work, the video reception is choppy, to say the least. This is a major problem. I cannot work from home and it is difficult " to keep up ".

 

I am no longer on the editorial board of a major journal because of my poor internet access.

 

I am extremely frustrated that my professional life is compromised by living in this wonderful state. We will not be able to attract physicians if they cannot read their work from home. It is that simple. This must be fixed soon.

 

Carol

 

 

My children often leave home to go to one of their relatives homes where they have access to reasonable speed internet to do homework.

 

I have three friends who work from home and often talk about moving (not their businesses, their families!) so they can have reliable internet for work. People sometimes don't purchase homes in our town when they find out how backward things are here in terms of communication.

 

My company allows telecommuting but I can't participate because of the poor internet access in my town. As soon as decent internet is available I will begin telecommuting 2-3 days per week, saving about 50 miles of driving, gas, pollution, per day. And over an hour of my time.

 

The children in our school are not motivated to learn more about the world of technology and information because so much of what they want to try doesn't work with our slow internet.

 

I can't effectively bank on-line.

 

Therese in Strafford

 

 

I service commercial microwave ovens in the upper valley,  western NH and most of Vermont. The companies I represent have started to offer on-line live training sessions for their new products. I'm unable to take these training sessions due to the slow down loading of dial-up.

 

As I fall behind on training and my factory certifications I may loose my factory authorization to perform authorized service. One more job lost due to the lack of high speed communications.

 

Jerry in White River Junction

 

 

We have eagerly awaited broadband in Thetford for years.  I completed my bachelors degree two years ago, taking mainly online classes and using dialup internet.  Given how slow this was, many times I would stay at work late and do my work at Dartmouth.  

 

We currently have a very expensive satellite service.  My husband and son are both in school, and I use the internet a lot for work.  We regularly have to monitor each other on how much we download, and have been shut down to the lowest bandwidth several times because of our use being too high.

 

Recently we ordered DSL from Fairpoint, only to learn last week that it is not available, even though we were told it was.  This is a huge disappointment, not only because of the cheaper rate for it versus Wildblue, but the fact that we still can't get highspeed internet period.

 

We have found over the years that we can be in some pretty remote places of the country and still have DSL, so I still question the logic behind what Verizon, Fairpoint and the state government have used to tell us that we can't get it.  

 

And yes, I know plenty of people who have left our town because they cannot sustain their business with such poor internet choices.

 

Lisa in Thetford Center

 

 

 

We have no other option than dial-up. A dish is far too expensive. I pay for a server, I pay extra for additional local phone service to use the internet, yet we can't download 80% of e-mails that come to us, if we try to download the big ones, we get bumped offline. I have friends all over the country that send me things to share with us and we can't see or hear them.

 

It is ridiculous how out of touch we are. I am far too conservative to be a socialist, but I feel that because technology has advanced so far and become so important in todays world, it is imparative that it become accessible to anyone who needs it. Verizon should have been forced to provide DSL before they were allowed to bail out of any responsibilities to Vermont, after making millions here.

 

I can only dream of the day that I don't have to spend an hour online anytime I want to mearly check my e-mail.  

 

Please connect us up, soon!

 

Jim in Rochester

 

 

 

 

My wife and I are self employed and rely on our internet connection to make a living.  We use the Wild Blue satellite service for our businesses and home.

 

Presently connecting at around 2mb/s download (with uploads at 170k), what once was a big imporovement over dialup, is now falling behind.  Applications and client sevices are requiring larger files with streaming capabilities.  We currently pay $80/month for the Wild Blue service.

 

I own a recording studio.  We record music CD's and mix the sound for television and film.  It is very important to be able to download and upload music and compressed video in order to serve my client base in NY. My Wife is a writer for Television and she has close to the same requirements.  She sends scripts to her porducers and they send video files on a regular basis.  Our children rely on the internet when they research papers for school.  Business and banking is mostly all on line now.

 

There is no clear upgrade path for Satellite and I'm afraid it will become the next "Dial-up".

 

We support the installation of a fiber network in our town.

 

 

Roger and Kate in Granville

 

 

 

Here are the reasons why we need ECFiber at our house.

 

We live on a dirt road in a narrow valley oriented somewhat SW to NE.  The hills on either side rise very steeply 400 to 500 feet.  We have no view to the south or the west.  Therefore we don't have a line to a satellite or even the tower on Mt. Ascutney.

 

We are 7 miles from Woodstock which is the largest town in our area which means there is no chance of a cable hook-up.

 

All of that means we have to use our phone line for our Internet connection.  The lines themselves are very old and have more and more customers added every year.  At this point our download speed is anywhere from 4 to 8 megabytes per HOUR.

 

Another drawback to using the phone lines is that the cost (on our phone bill) more than doubles from 9am to 9pm during the work week.  Thus we try very hard to only be on line before 9 in the morning or after 9 at night.  The latter works well for my teenage son but not for me.  (Although he also has to wait until that time to check his home-work assignments...)  That leaves a 2 or 3 hour window  from after I wake up to do everything I need to do on the Internet.  At 4m/HOUR that isn't a lot of time, especially if the computer is doing its automatic updates (which I cannot control....).  A 10 megabyte update could take 2 hours.  Meanwhile I am lucky if I can get my email downloaded during the same time.

 

Sometimes we have to leave the computer connected for much of the day during the weekend to catch up on automatic updates which means no one can call us on the telephone.

 

We also are discouraged to try to open any websites that are complicated or have many images - can you think of one that doesn't?  So no checking bank accounts, paying bills on line or visiting with friends on any social websites.  If we could pay bills on line then we could save a few trees and postage.

Forget seeing any videos of my children and grandchildren, I have to request they not even send pictures in their email messages.

 

Here is a specific example.  The other day I was expecting the veterinarian at 9am to give our horses their annual vaccinations.  After feeding the horses and myself I was using the time left to check my correspondence on the computer.  About 8:45 I logged off to give the vet a chance to call in case he was running late.  In about the same minute my brother stopped by to tell me that indeed the vet was running late and he'd had to call their house because he was getting a continual busy signal trying to call me.

 

Here is another specific example.  My son was recently accepted at a college.  I happened to be looking at a checklist they sent.  It mentioned that we should have heard from the financial aid office at the beginning of the month.  I called the office and was told that they have stopped sending information using the post office.  Now all correspondence was going to my son's email account at the college.  Oh, and by the way we had forms overdue!  Luckily that lady was nice enough to tell me where I could download the forms which I had to do at a different residence. 

 

We haven't considered watching commercial (or cable) TV in years because of the lack of reception.  We've gotten used to renting videos and then we switched to NetFlix.  We are forced to ignore any advertisements or promotions to view live events such as the presidential inauguration or some especially exciting final games or races of any sport.

 

In the past we'd get a fuzzy picture on a cloudy day when the signal would bounce from Ascutney off the hill to the SW to our antenna.  Now things have gone digital and our new digital translator box has deemed the signal unreadable so we get nothing.

 

We don't have a long-distance phone provider.  (Cell-phone?  You're kidding, right?)  We use a card for long distance which saves us over $100 a year before we make any phone calls.

 

I also have a part-time job doing web design and maintenance.  At this point I must go next door to my parent's house to do that work and use their satellite connection.  Even that is slow and unreliable.  There are many people in our area who use the same satellite and it often cuts out completely due to the high traffic of Internet users.  If I could do that work at home it would save me a lot of time and be more efficient for my clients.

 

At this point our dial-up Internet, our only local phone and no TV reception still costs us over $60 per month.  The idea that we could have telephone, a few cable stations and faster Internet speed for one not much higher price seems like a miracle!

 

Gina in Barnard

 

 

 

Telephone, internet and television access mean different things to different people.  Some people can't live without television; others can't live without a good internet connection.  The times when dial up was enough are far behind us.

 

I can read a chapter waiting for a text e-mail to open when utilizing dial up. While I love to read, spending that much time waiting for an e-mail and tying up the phone line is too much.  

 

Our local cable company went out of business.  Maintaining the old antenna system on top of the mountain just wasn't feasible any more.  Unfortunately, my home is located where I cannot get satellite reception or reception with an antenna on my house.  My sources for news and weather are the internet, radio and newspaper.  Watching the presidential debates on the internet was interesting (voice and video were not always in sync).

 

Like many, I have a limited budget for telephone, internet, etc.  As a single mother of two (both will be in college this fall), I may have to eliminate internet access and reduce my phone service to the minimum in the fall in order to meet living and college expenses.  

 

Some people take for granted having cable and internet services readily available.  They might wonder why someone would live where they do not have access.  I do not live in the back woods.  I live in a nice Vermont village.  

 

Having the fiber network available would have a significant impact on my household.  We would have television again and the telephone and internet bill would be affordable.  I appreciate the efforts of so many who are working toward the availability of an efficient, affordable fiber network.

 

 

 

 

My name is Andrew, I'm from East Barnard, and I'm currently volunteering in Ecuador.  I have high speed internet available to me here and my mother has a computer with a microphone camera hookup.  Unfortunately, we don't have high speed internet available to us so the majority of conversation is restricted to email rather than being able to use skype.

 

It would be wonderful if we had high speed internet available in East Barnard.  Unfortunately we don't.

  

 

Andrew from East Barnard

 

 

 

 

Back in 2003, I decided to return to Vermont upon leaving Europe where I managed major IT programs at Glaxo Wellcome, Nestle, and BT.  I was under the impression that as I could work anywhere that I could live anywhere.  I might have to give up some of the 'nice to have features' of life but not too many.

 

Boy was I wrong!

 

I purchased a home in Marlboro in Windham County.  I live right on the State Highway, Route 9, which is THE main road across Southern Vermont connecting Bennington and Brattleboro.  This highway is the primary path for folks from Massachusetts (Boston), New Hampshire (Concord and Manchester), and New York (New York metropolitan and Albany) to travel to the heart-and-soul of Vermont's Ski Country and broadband is NOT available for blood nor money!  Okay, that is not quite accurate, with blood and money a residential T1 line is available from FairPoint for approx $800 per month plus one-time-installation costs (1.5Mbps of screaming broadband).  

 

HughesNet also provides a solution for rural America. HughesNet Satellite (while HughesNet provides a service, they won't guarantee the bandwidth even though they charge for a tier-based or bandwidth-based service claiming that weather, sun spots, lunar cycles, and Victoria Secret Online Fashion Shows can adversely affect the bandwidth actually received by the subscriber).  If you cancel your order anytime over the two year contract you will be liable for $400 in penalty and related fees. Caveat Emptor.

 

Welcome to the Information Age in Rural America!  

 

These days all services are delivered from web portals.  You name it: Taxes, Insurance, Federal, State, Private and Non-Profit organizations leverage the power of the internet to create the finest portals that money can buy.  Large enterprises, like my employer, leverage the internet for sales, for support, for employee programs and benefits.  If you want it, then you can get it from the internet.  But you cannot get IT or much of anything else if you use a dial-up solution.

 

I am responsible for the deliveries of products and services for a $1.5B USD solution here in the Americas (North and South America).  I have folks on my team from across two continents.  I have tools that I am expected to use, web portal-based tools, that I need to access for tracking orders, project status, labor rates, financials, time keeping and tracking, online meetings, etc.  And I have to use a 50 Kbps dial-up account!

 

Needless to say, I understand now why our neighbors have left Marlboro and live in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  What takes me 90 minutes to accomplish in Vermont takes them 15 minutes.  I have to drive to Keene to log onto a WiFi hotspot in Borders bookstore in order to access a web portal, to take online classes, to download tax forms, to do everything that we need to accomplish in the Information Age.  Forget YouTube, Facebook, streaming video, blogging, latest weather radar and NetMeeting.  Ain't gonna happen in this State.

 

And we hear all about the support available from the Federal Government.  It is all online!  Doing your taxes, well support is online!  Want to check our Medicare, well support is online!  Want to check your Social Security, well support is online!  Want to check out Veteran's Programs, well support is online.  Want to view your health insurance benefits, well that is online. And the phone support???  Those phone numbers are online too!  But you need a broadband connection and a laptop and if you have the laptop to get to the web portal then you have to go to the library in the next town where space is limited as is the broadband.  

 

My solution?  Well I still travel to Keene, I still travel 240 miles round-trip to the Marlborough office, and probably will continue to do so in the near future.  You see, FairPoint promised me DSL in July of last year and that didn't show up.  Then I was told that the next town over was being upgraded and then I could get DSL before the New Year, but an Ice Storm tore down all the phone and electric lines so that has been delayed.  

 

Maybe by July of some year, I will have DSL in Rural Vermont.  A technology that was new and competitive in the early 1990's.  But FairPoint?  This is the same company that couldn't perform a simple switch over from Verizon.  I would hazard a guess they outsourced that transition to some company from India.  If they didn't outsouce it, and it failed, then maybe they should have.

 

I cancelled my second phone line from FairPoint earlier this month.  You know, the phone line with the dial-up service from Verizon.  It took five days to actually place the order.  Some problem with their software I was told...

 

 

Mike in Marlboro

 

 

 

 

 

I work freelance in the college textbook publishing industry. Because of the Internet, I am able to make a good living working from my home in Granville, Vermont, for publishing companies located in New York City, Boston, New Jersey, and California. I am on-line all day and routinely send and receive large files of manuscript, illustrations, and photographs. Back when I was just a vacationer in Granville, I wanted to live permanently in my house here but unlike New York, where I had cable service, there was no cable or DSL available here. The dial up service was slow even for dial up, but even at top dial-up speed it wouldn't have been anywhere near fast enough for my needs.

 

Then in 2003 I discovered Wildblue satellite service. It enabled me to live and work here permanently. It was never as fast as cable, but for the first three years it was fast enough. Since 2006, however, it has been running slower and slower. Why? I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it's because Wildblue has been successful in gaining more subscribers. Now, especially during the late afternoon and early evening, my download and upload speeds are under 700 kbps and 60 kbps. I have to break my emails into series to keep the size of the attachments to a minimum and even so, it takes 10 minutes or more to send each one. Large files sent by a publisher often seem to get stuck midstream on their way to my email application and I have to go into my email account at Wildblue.net, delete the file, then email the person who sent it and with many apologies, ask them to compress the files before they send them. I can't bill for the time I waste doing this and I am clearly losing some income because of that. But more importantly, I worry that in a few more years the satellite service will be so slow I won't be able to do my kind of work at all.

 

I'm settled here, have a stake and a roll in this community and this state, and I want to stay here. I know other business people and professionals just like me who love living here and have also based their livelihood on the same ever-diminishing satellite speeds. In this changing economy, people in the Green Mountains need to be able to tap into the variety of income sources outside the local area. Without broadband, our ability to reach out professionally to the world outside Central Vermont will disappear and we'll all have to move back to the cities we came from.

 

A shame for us. A shame for Vermont.

 

Mary in Granville

 

 

 

 

Our limited broadband story:

 

I work for a not-for-profit in the state of VT.  Too keep costs low and as I travel 50% of the time throughout VT, I work out of my home office.  The challenge is good internet.  I find I waste a minimum of 25% of my day (my productivity) waiting for communications.  I am bogged down during web -based conference calls, I am unable to video chat with my clients so I am forced to travel more frequently adding expense and more costly loss of time (windshield time).  I live in Norwich VT,  3 Miles from the center of town as well as Dartmouth College.  The fact that I do not have access to broadband is simply unacceptable.  

 

I find myself forced to drive and yes waste precious gas, time and add to our environmental woes when I need to be effectively connected.  My office options are limited.  A library isn't conducive to my need to chat and video conference.

 

I am therefore forced to travel to Randolph or Springfield VT to bunk in with my colleagues so I can do my job.  If I lived 30 miles from no-where off the grid I would understand, but I don't so why don't I have broad band options?

 

On a personal note:  My son is currently in a University abroad, it is very disappointing when I attempt to video chat and see him after several months, only to experience drop outs and frozen screens.  I am also concerned for the value of my home as lack of broadband will clearly impact its resale value and interest.

 

Lisa in Norwich

 

 

I have no options at this time for high-speed internet service.  Currently there is no high-speed option through our land-line telephone company.  I do not have cell service at my home.  I do not have access to cable television.  I have too many trees to see the 5 satellites needed for access through a satellite.  I do not have a line of sight to Mt. Ascutney for WaveComm service.

 

For personal use, it is becoming quite frustrating to download a photo via email for 20 minutes, or waiting for a website to open for almost as long.  I've noticed an increasing trend towards larger websites that just can't be accessed with dial-up.  For business use, working in orthopaedics at a local hospital I could have access to digital xrays from home with high-speed internet access, that is just impossible with dial-up access.  This would help me to guide local ED staff in triaging patient injuries, and subsequently facilitate better patient care.

 

Tim in West Windsor

 

 

I saw an article in the Vermont Standard about the proposed fiber network and am very interested as to where this project now stands. I believe that the stimulus package contains 7 billion for rual broadband access. Is there any way that this project can get some of this money? This ecfiber project is ready to go and would create jobs immediately which is what the stimulus package is supposed to do. Also the State would be or could be paid back allowing other towns to use this money for broadband. (I believe the money's would be funneled through the State). I know Senator Leahey is interested in broadband money.I have e-mailed him a few months ago on getting rural broadband money. I would appreciate any info on the ecfiber project.

 

Leo in Pomfret

 

 

 

 

 

I currently pay about $107.00 a month for basic cable and so called "high speed" internet... I too cannot download large files due to limits placed by my provided (of which they do not tell customers about). I purchased software recently; could not download it and was prohibited from getting a refund.

 

This project offers a World of opportunities to the Upper Valley, the jobs created by the installation and business management will boost the economy, lower unemployment and lower our dependance on foreign oil by reducing the need to travel to get a connection. Not to mention the possibility of attracting business reliant on true high speed technology.

 

Glenn in Wilder