
Vermont proposes providing broadband internet service to all state residents - PretzelFisch
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2020/05/06/vermont-proposes-providing-broadband-all-state-residents/5177598002/
======
nekbroadband
Hi there, I'm a part of this effort and we did learn from the Burlington
Telecom fiasco. Legislation was passed in 2014 that provided for the forming
of Communications Union Districts which can build municipally controlled
broadband infrastructure, but can't access the municipal bond market, meaning
taxpayers are never at risk. The downside of this is we have to rely on
federal funding in most cases since private capital wants to make sure they
have the option to take it out on the taxpayer if the debt load becomes
unserviceable. Right now this is not an issue at all for us with hundreds of
millions of stimulus money specifically for broadband floating around, the
challenge is beating Comcast et al to the money bin. Comcast in particular is
pure evil in Vermont, they signed a contract to build out a paltry 550 miles
of new cable to unserved addresses over 10 years (55 miles a year) and then
sued the state afterwards for infringing on their 1st amendment rights.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/comcast-sues-
ver...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/comcast-sues-vermont-to-
avoid-building-550-miles-of-new-cable-lines/)

I'm with one of the largest CUDs in VT, NEK Community Broadband, which
represents 27 towns in the northeast of the state. We're talking to our state
government as we speak to make sure incumbent providers are held accountable
if they are provided with federal money, and preferably, build our own
infrastructure. The timeline for this has shrunk from 3-5 years, to 8 MONTHS
by restrictions imposed on spending CARES act and other federal dollars by Jan
1. It's an exciting time!

~~~
vtthrowaway2519
How do these munibroadband efforts dovetail with existing local fiber
companies? I get access through Waitsfield & Champlain Valley Telecom and
after granted a long delay on speeds they've been pretty aggressive about
fiber rollouts in the last year or two. I'm down by Monkton and have 1G fiber.
It's $105 a month, which is certainly more than BTV but this isn't a dense
area at all either, and even when still on DSL they've always been really
pleasant to deal with. I know there have been other fiber deployments in
various places one might not expect at first glance in VT too, and the
mountainous terrain is both an impediment to physical rollout but also offers
some opportunities for WISPs.

Definitely excited to see more progress on this at last, and Comcast is
certainly awful. I hope though that'll it'll benefit from and get boosted by
what is here too.

~~~
nekbroadband
Very much so. We're looking at EC Fiber as a model of what a successful CUD
looks like, and also talking to local electric distribution utilities who have
unused fiber assets that we can license from them for residential use.
Wireless we are very wary of here, as it is both weather and terrain dependent
and provides poor speeds (usually around 14-20m) and one of the larger
wireless internet providers, VTel, squandered a USDA rural broadband grant a
few years ago and effectively locked the northeast region of the state out of
further funding from that program.

~~~
vtthrowaway2519
Fair enough and thanks for the reply! I certainly didn't mean to suggests that
WISPs should get any federal funding directly per se, more that one of the
benefits of more fiber deployment would be more options for private higher
speed "WISPs" (which could just be a techie on a hill who can put up a few
cheap 400 Mbps class PtPs for some neighbors) so there might be coordination
opportunities.

Per your comment elsewhere in the thread, I'd definitely like to see 100% of
any NEW federal money in particular go to fiber. Even if it takes a while,
every bit of incremental build out there is permanent progress, not wasted on
dead end ancient copper.

Best of luck to you! I joined a vt governor's campaign back in 2010 in part
because they were the only one to really focus on this issue. It's something I
think could help the state significantly.

------
siegbenn
I live in Vermont and I'm tentatively excited about this. Unfortunately, our
municipal internet provider in Burlington, VT was financially a disaster [1].

The tax payers put up a bunch of money. Burlington Telecom was mismanaged into
defaulting on its debts causing the city's bond rating to fall to nearly junk
bond status. It was sold at a loss to a private company. [2]

Very disappointing considering how awesome Burlington Telecom is. I currently
pay $35 for 1G symmetrical in my apartment building.

Hopefully if this statewide project goes through, they don't repeat those
mistakes.

[1] [https://vermontbiz.com/news/2019/march/13/citibank-fully-
rel...](https://vermontbiz.com/news/2019/march/13/citibank-fully-releases-
burlington-335-million-bt-lawsuit) (Citibank fully releases Burlington from
$33.5 million BT lawsuit)

[2] [https://www.wcax.com/content/news/The-Burlington-Telecom-
sag...](https://www.wcax.com/content/news/The-Burlington-Telecom-saga-and-how-
we-got-to-where-we-are-455070453.html) (Burlington Telecom timeline: How did
we get here?)

~~~
toomuchtodo
The same could be said about Frontier [1] and Windstream [2]. I like that
Vermont keeps trying, my internet should be like my water, sewer, and similar
local services: a utility. The unemployed can be trained to run fiber, and the
Fed is going to keep soaking up muni bonds [3], not much to lose by trying
again. Capital is cheap, treat failure as just as cheap.

It can be done [4] [5]. But you have to care. You have to build public systems
and goods that are loved, because to love them is to want to provide ongoing
care for them, and to invest yourself in them (financially and otherwise).

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-
bankruptcy-r...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-
reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions) (EFF: Frontier’s
Bankruptcy Reveals Why Big ISPs Choose to Deny Fiber to So Much of America)

[2] [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2019/02/winds...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2019/02/windstream-isp-with-1-million-customers-files-for-
bankruptcy/) (Windstream, ISP with 1 million customers, files for bankruptcy)

[3] [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/27/the-fed-says-it-is-
expanding...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/27/the-fed-says-it-is-expanding-
its-municipal-bond-buying-program.html) (CNBC: The Fed says it is expanding
its municipal bond buying program)

[4]
[https://muninetworks.org/communitymap](https://muninetworks.org/communitymap)
(US Muni Fiber Map)

[5] [https://b4rn.org.uk/](https://b4rn.org.uk/) (England: Broadband for the
Rural North)

~~~
zajio1am
> I like that Vermont keeps trying, my internet should be like my water,
> sewer, and similar local services: a utility.

It is practically impossible to run multiple competing water and sewer pipes
or other utilies. But there is no such problem with fiber. Or there could be
public passive fiber operated by multiple competing ISPs.

Proper role of government is to actively encourage competition, not destroy
market by subsidised public service. But it seems that US government instead
actively discourage competition, which leads to bad commercial services, which
leads to public preference for monopolistic government service, with all its
problems well known from Europe past.

~~~
toomuchtodo
You're entitled to your opinion of course, but it has repeatedly been shown
that ISPs will not make the necessary investments, and instead will over
leverage with debt while milking the customer base for the most dollars they
can while providing the lowest quality of service tolerable.

Private enterprise had their chance, decades even. Fool us once.

~~~
mmm_grayons
Symmetric gigabit is under $80/mo from AT&T where I live. That's not only good
new infrastructure but also significantly cheaper than the old cable stuff.
Maybe were the space less regulated ISPs would make a greater investment,
especially were it easier to start one's own. If the WISP idea ever gets
really good that would solve most of the situation.

~~~
colejohnson66
> Maybe were the space less regulated ISPs would make a greater investment,
> especially were it easier to start one's own.

I’m genuinely curious: what regulations are hampering investment? Cause it’s
not net neutrality (ISPs have said to their investors that it doesn’t)

Seriously, the governments have taken almost a hands off approach to the
internet, and it’s now evident that it’s not working.

~~~
rayiner
The government does not take a "hands off approach to the Internet." It might
seem that way, because the _federal government_ does that. But when you're
talking about building physical things in specific places, that's largely the
domain of cities and states, and accordingly most of the relevant regulation
is at the state and local level.

State-and-local permitting is one huge morass. When I had fiber installed to
my house, Comcast had to get permits to hang fiber on a utility poll. Then
there were different permits for diverting traffic temporarily while hanging
the fiber. Then there were other permits for trenching. The whole process took
_months_. And there is a skilled worker there that has to shepard the process
through the bureaucracy.

Other regulations prevent offering television service (a key revenue source)
without commitments to build a certain footprint. That means you can't start
an ISP with a "minimal viable product" and grow from there. You have to be
willing to commit huge amounts of money up front before you see a cent of
revenue.

It's very illustrative to look at the deals Google Fiber struck with
municipalities, because that shows you where are the real pressure points. Two
features appeared in almost every accepted proposal for a Fiber city: (1) one-
shot, fast-track permitting; and (2) no build-out requirements.

------
geocrasher
I wish more states viewed it this way. I think that COVID19 has proven that
Internet isn't a luxury, it's a utility that we all need. In a world with
online meetings being the way to simply hang out with your friends, those with
bad Internet connections are suffering more. It shouldn't be that way.

~~~
noxToken
I have a coworker who basically doesn't participate in meetings. Their
connection is so bad that maybe 10% of their sentences are intelligible.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Some video conferencing providers allow you to call in to a meeting with a
landline telephone. I know Zoom does, anyway. No video, obviously, just voice.

------
cryptoquick
I live in Longmont, Colorado, and we have cheap municipal fiber.

1Gbps, synchronous, $55/mo.

Just now:

[https://www.speedtest.net/result/9466487634.png](https://www.speedtest.net/result/9466487634.png)

Similar speeds on Netflix's fast.com.

This is what happens when monopolies have competition they can bully, but not
buy.

~~~
bproven
Hello neighbor! Fort Collins, CO checking in - municipal fiber, same service /
speeds BUT we do have to pay $5 more per month. Oh well. :) Looks like quite a
few other cities in CO are joining us soon..

~~~
cryptoquick
Very cool! Apparently it costs a bit more now than when I first signed up.
Also, they support 10G! I'm already wiring up everything with Cat8 and I'm
looking for a 10G Router and a 10G Switch.

It's been hard to find just the right one, though. Almost as hard as finding
the perfect bento box.

I'm looking for a 16-port or 24-port switch, ideally they'd all be 10G, but I
could compromise a little on a few being multigig. Also, I'm not really
worried about PoE, I don't have anything that could use that yet, and if I
ever did, I'd purchase a separate switch, and probably not 10G.

Price isn't a major concern, if I can't afford it, I'll just hold off with
what I have until I can, and I've never really used a managed network
interface, so I'd probably just prefer an unmanaged one.

I do need to have a separate subnet for my wireless router set in AP mode, so
whatever 10G router I choose, I'd want it to be able to support that.

I've been looking into Mikrotik and Ubiquiti, and they don't seem to quite
offer exactly what I'm looking for. Cisco might, but their site is...
Incredibly difficult to use.

------
eatonphil
I've been looking into buying a house and moving to Vermont. The topic of
fuller, better internet coverage seems to come up every few years. So I'm a
little skeptical to see it now.

I'm not sure I'd consider it a blocker to moving there, even if I'm dependent
on the internet for work. I'm assuming I'll always be able to lease an office
within an hour drive of the house.

I wonder how practical satellite options like Viasat are says it gets
12-100Mbps download across Vermont. That's as good as Comcast's consumer
broadband gets you in Philly.

If there are any folks here who own and live on land in Vermont I'd love to
ask you more about how/where you're living and working, if you wouldn't mind.

~~~
mauvehaus
Moved to VT in early January from the Boston area, in what was by sheer
chance, a _very_ timely move. We rent.

We live in a bit of an odd development/area. Think of it as a golf course
community minus the golf course: under a dozen homes, low density, and private
roads. We quite like it, but it's an unusual arrangement from a utilities
standpoint.

We have Comcast. The other options were VTEL via satellite and cellular
wireless. We struck cellular wireless from the list for reasons we're all well
familiar with ("unlimited", caps, speed restrictions, cost). VTEL was going to
be complicated because we have a metal roof, among other things. We're told
that unofficially we can get line of sight to nearby VTEL infra, but
convincing VTEL of this seemed like a lot of work while we were moving.

We got ridiculously lucky on begin able to get Comcast. The pole our cable
comes off of is literally the last pole with coax on it. In this regard, I
suppose I'm replying to you from the actual end of the internet. There is
possibly one other house within the radius of the pole that Comcast is wiling
to pull a line. That's 300' for a temp line, which they did for us because the
ground was frozen and the couldn't bury a line when they did the original
install. I don't know if it's longer if they can do a direct bury.

The latency and throughput aren't as good as they were in the Boston area, but
it's good enough. Zoom calls tend towards blurry, but Netflix and Youtube are
certainly serviceable. Instagram videos tend to pause a lot for buffering. Bad
websites are apocalyptically bad. Joann.com, for example, is horrendously
slow. I'm guessing they never worried too much about e-commerce until quite
recently.

I'm told that the cable company put coax up to the development way back in the
day, but that nobody actually subscribed, and so the line was never brought
any farther in.

~~~
csharptwdec19
> I'm told that the cable company put coax up to the development way back in
> the day, but that nobody actually subscribed, and so the line was never
> brought any farther in.

That happens, especially if it's a lower density area.

Usually the way it goes is if the region is close to the minimum 'homes
passed/mile' metric they'll do a minimum build-out, that way if there's enough
interest and/or HPM goes above threshold it's not absurdly expensive to finish
the buildout (and/or buildout as people actually request service.)

------
cure
Yay for Vermont, but I hope they give their plan some teeth when the big
telcos (who presumably would be doing the work) inevitably do not deliver on
their promises.

It would be much better if they turn it into the state-wide equivalent of
municipal broadband. Maybe that's what they are thinking? The article is very
light on details.

------
jimhefferon
My wife is a VT teacher, in secondary education. Obviously with Covid all
students are being educated online. Those who do not have an online are at a
quite significant disadvantage.

That is, at least until this is over broadband to all can be thought of as, in
part, component of a statewide education infrastructure.

------
votepaunchy
Godspeed Vermont. May you have more success than your promised single-payer
health care.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform)

------
Simulacra
Municipal internet is something we should all get behind because the internet
is no longer a luxury, or a tool, it's an essential service. Imagine not
having the internet in the next pandemic.

~~~
celebrant
Food is also essential. Do we have municipal farms?

~~~
colejohnson66
Kindof.

We provide massive subsidies to farmers. Then the farmers give us food.

But when we provide massive subsidies to ISPs, they don’t invest; They just
spend it on executive bonuses and stock buybacks.

------
Taylor_OD
Growing up in Vermont wifi was so bad. Cell signal is still pretty awful in
many parts of the state especially the northern kingdom.

Hope this goes through. I have friends that are still on dial up.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _That’s defined as speeds of 25 megabits per second for download and 3
> megabits per second for upload._

I really wish they just considered symmetrical speeds. These bizarre
asymmetric speed limits are just a made-up limitation of the Comcast era.

~~~
nekbroadband
We're currently fighting to get this definition changed to 100/100
symmetrical, because as you say this magic number of 25/3 lets DSL in the
door, which in turn means incumbent providers can continue to get federal
dollars that they will refuse to spend on infrastructure. Telcos will claim
their ancient 50 year old copper is capable of delivering 25/3 to an area,
when in fact only the first 5 houses on a road get near that number. If you
happen to be the 12th house down the road (about a mile out) you get 7/1 on a
good day because the copper was strung in the late 1950s. The minimum standard
having a symmetric speed requirement prevents small diameter copper from
stealing money from the pot.

~~~
treis
>We're currently fighting to get this definition changed to 100/100
symmetrical

TIL I don't have high speed internet.

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I don’t think anyone except fiber providers are offering more than 10 mbps
upload.

Because piracy is an existential problem for Comcast (owner of NBCUniversial
among others) there’s incentive to keep upload SLOW.

And don’t get me started on bandwidth caps. I remember doing the math and
realizing I could hit my bandwidth cap in 8 minutes if my internet went the
full theoretical speed.

------
6510

      Population: 623,989
      23%: 143,517
      300,000,000/143,517.47 = 2090 USD

~~~
keeganjw
Wow dang, I hadn't done the math on that. That's much more cost effective than
I though it'd be, what a deal!

------
kondu
I'm always surprised by how bad and expensive the internet providers in the US
are. Where I am (think major city in a 3rd world country), I pay about 20 USD
a month for 650gb at 150mbps (up and down).

------
_iyig
Vermont has a troubled recent history with expensive, state-wide public
initiatives:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform#Gre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_health_care_reform#Green_Mountain_Care)

The elimination of rent-seeking behavior from healthcare and Internet service
is great, in theory. For whatever combination of reasons, the state government
of Vermont and city government of Burlington have had difficulty putting this
theory into practice.

------
sys_64738
I'd expect the Comcast lobbyists to go into overdrive to get this decision
overturned. Also, I'd expect them to file a lawsuit against the state
government of VT in a similar desired outcome. This would lead to the domino
effect if it were allowed to occur.

~~~
colejohnson66
I’m curious: on what grounds would Comcast have to sue? I could understand the
US government stepping in with the Commerce Clause, but I don’t know of any
laws that would give Comcast and friends the ability to sue.

------
prophesi
To see a model of a municipal ISP succeeding, you can look at Chattanooga,
TN's EPB.

------
thrower123
It's really interesting watching the natural experiments that are the northern
New England states. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are small, essentially
the same founding stock, and yet they go in such radically different
directions.

------
nojito
State wide broadband is extremely hard to do.

If you look at all the successful community broadband initiatives in the US,
they are almost always at the city/county level.

------
mobilefriendly
These latest "broadband" efforts look like just another money grab by the same
incumbents (Comcast, Frontier, etc) and the same state and federal
bureaucracies that have failed to deliver competition and access. Vermont
should simply announce full throated support for low-orbit satellite internet,
which is under active deployment from SpaceX and also development from Amazon.

~~~
nekbroadband
Absolutely agreed that the same inefficient companies are trying to grab the
federal money once again. The difference this time is we have Communications
Union Districts in place in many parts of the state that have veto power over
proposed broadband projects in their region.

As for LEOS internet, the elephant in the room for this technology is
vulnerability to solar flares and Kessler syndrome. Long term viability of
satellite super constellations is seriously in doubt.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)

------
commandlinefan
I wonder if this will be used as an excuse to start censoring the internet
just as the FCC used "public airwaves" as an excuse to censor broadcast.

