ECFiber will celebrate the completion of its mission to build broadband in 23 towns in rural Vermont at the location of its network hub in White River Junction, VT on June 27^th.   Sen. Peter Welch will be the keynote speaker.

Date: June 27, 2023
Time: 11am
Location: VFW Hall (Map)

Update: Due to weather, the ceremony will be held in VFW Hall.

Reception will follow at the Northern Stage Lobby.

ECFiber governing board chair F. X. Flinn points to the port in the Quechee hub that will deliver multi-gigabit service to his house later this year.

ECFiber: A Vermont Miracle

ECFiber is the trade name of a community-controlled internet service provider, the East Central Vermont Telecommunications District (ECVTD), Vermont’s first communications union district (CUD). But back in 2006, it was just a grass-roots effort to bring decent internet to towns in the Upper Valley area of east-central Vermont.

Long before the pandemic persuaded everyone that the internet was a necessary utility, and ARPA and BEAD money started being showered on the country, local folks in the Upper Valley realized cable companies weren’t ever going to build out in their towns. They decided to find a way to build a network of their own.

Modeling the effort after Burlington Telecom (BT), a municipal project by Vermont’s largest city, a group of community organizers managed to get identical resolutions on the warrants for Town Meeting in 2008, and 23 towns voted to go for it. An “inter-local” contract was signed by the towns, creating the first version of ECFiber. The mission: to bring broadband to all homes and businesses in the 23 towns. The expected date of completion: 2011.

At first Wall Street was eager to finance this community effort, and a closing on a big loan that would cover the cost of 1,500+ miles of network was set for late Sept. 2008. The financial collapse the week beforehand killed that financing. Then, adding another barrier, the state legislature passed a bill forbidding towns to bond for communications services in reaction to BT’s effective bankruptcy. This meant the 23 towns could not cooperate on a property-tax based bond. ECFiber was at a standstill that lasted until the spring of 2011.

Fortunately, the local organizers included board members of ValleyNet, Inc., a non-profit ISP that had been created in the early 90s at Dartmouth to provide local dial-up internet (providers like AOL and Compuserve didn’t have local numbers in the area — the original rural internet crisis). They proposed, and the board created by the 23 town interlocal contract agreed, to provide seed capital and help raise funds using private placement promissory notes issued by ECF Holdings LLC, the corporation set up to operate the ECFiber business. During 2010-11, enough was raised to build a 25 mile proof of concept network, which went into service during the last week of August 2011, in the days leading to the Irene flooding. During the next 3 years, local borrowing grew to nearly $7 million from over 400 individual investors, 200+ miles of network were built and nearly 1,000 customers, most of whom only had dial-up access, were connected.

Annual audits began in 2012, and they showed ECFiber was real business capable of servicing large amounts of debt. Yet investment banks specializing in municipal bonds refused to do so, with one banker famously remarking ‘We’d be happy to issue municipal bonds backed by network revenues for you, but our risk analysts, our economists, our lawyers don’t know what an interlocal contract among 23 Vermont towns is. If you were a sewer district, we’d issue your bonds in 3 months!’

So, in 2014, the board set up a committee that drafted a law allowing for the creation in Vermont of special-purpose municipalities. Passed in 2015’s Act 41 and signed into law on 6/1/15, the ECVTD was created on 6/16/15, pursuant to 30 VSA 82. On 1/1/16, the assets of the LLC were transferred to the District, and less than 3 months later ECFiber issued $8 million of 2016A Series municipal revenue bonds. Half the promissory notes were retired, and the rest after the 2017A Series bonds were issued.

In the years since, more bonds have been issued, now totaling just over $64 million, and with the WRJ hub going into service, ECFiber celebrates completion of the network originally envisioned in 2006.

The ECFiber network comprises about 1,700 miles of network passing over 24,000 homes and businesses. This has been accomplished without any significant grant funding. Moreover, this is world-class broadband, defined as being able to deliver 1000/1000 service: a symmetrical gigabit.

ECFiber’s plans were felt to be unworkable by most state legislators and administrators and we were largely ignored until 2019, when we asked for changes in pole attachment rules because of delays that were preventing us from building out as fast as we wanted. During testimony, legislators suddenly realized we were actually accomplishing in our rural towns what they wanted for the whole state. They quickly agreed to our attachment changes, but then went further and created mechanisms and funding to spur creation of CUDs like ECFiber around the state. These efforts began in the fall of 2019, and naturally got a huge boost as the pandemic arrived, along with funding that helped 8 additional CUDs take flight in 2020. A 10^th CUD was created in 2023.

The CUD model created by ECFiber is Vermont’s strategy for accomplishing the broadband goals of ARPA and BEAD. Ironically, ECFiber will not be getting any of that money to help retire its bonds, but expects to be able to receive such support for the buildout in the 8 new towns that became District members in 2020.

The WRJ hub lighting ceremony, which is akin to the Golden Spike moment tying the first transcontinental railroad together, is a wonderful piece of good news.