Text for Town Reports

Shall the Town of (………) pursue executing an Interlocal Contract with other municipalities under Title 24 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated Section 4901, for the purpose of establishing a universal, open-access, financially self-sustaining broadband communications system to provide communications services, including high-speed internet, telephone and cable television, to the residents, businesses and institutions of these towns?

East Central Vermont Community Fiber (ECFiber) is a grass roots community-based group made up of over 15 towns in East-Central Vermont. Over the past two years we have been studying how best to make high-speed Internet available to every household and business in our towns. After considering all the technologies and options, we have concluded that a community-owned and operated fiber-optic network is the best solution, both technically and financially. Such a network will supply not only the fastest Internet available but will also provide high quality, low-cost phone service and television services. This fiber-optic network will be open to other providers who want to offer services. A similar system has already been built in Burlington, VT where it competes successfully with commercial providers (see their website, www.burlingtontelecom.net).

Our mission statement requires and our financial model anticipates that the service be made available to every home and business in town who wants it. The network would go past every household and business in town. No other Internet provider has stated this objective and even wireless providers don’t make this promise.

The network will be owned by the participating towns. However, because the network will generate revenue to pay for itself, no cash outlay from the member towns will be required. When the network becomes profitable, profits can be returned to the participating towns.

Private financing is used to make this plan happen. In order to secure funding from a lender we need our town to show support in the form of approval of a non-binding resolution. This resolution instructs our town Select Board to enter into an agreement with our neighboring towns to create a joint municipal entity. This entity will own the network, and will initially contract with ValleyNet, an Upper Valley based non-profit, to design, build and operate the network. ValleyNet recently engaged Tim Nulty, the founder and former director of Burlington Telecom to work on this project on a consulting basis.

Please vote to approve the attached resolution. Further details (and the opportunity to pre-register for service) may be found at www.ECFiber.net.