Vermont Telephone Wins Grant For Statewide Broadband

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(Host) A Vermont company has won $116 million in federal grants and loans to get high-speed computer access to nearly every home in the state.

As VPR’s Ross Sneyd reports, the money came from last year’s economic recovery act.

(Sneyd) Vermont Telephone is a small company. But it’s on the verge of accomplishing something that no one else has achieved: universal, high-speed computer access to every home in the state.

If it succeeds in the next two to three years, Vermont would be the only state that could make such a claim.

 (Campbell) "It’s a very big deal. It absolutely is."

(Sneyd) Chris Campbell is executive director of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority. His agency wasn’t involved in the Vermont Telephone project, but is responsible for finding ways to give every Vermonter a fast computer hookup.

(Campbell) "This is a very important day.  … The announcement of this award is very good news for the people who currently lack broadband today.

(Sneyd) VTel President Michel Guite says his company will leapfrog the existing system that powers things like an iPad and use the next generation of technology.

(Guite) "It’s simply taking that global movement to 4G LTE and taking the huge amount of wireless licenses we’ve acquired over the last 10 years for Vermont and simply using the technology that the giant companies would finally bring to Vermont 10 years from now, putting it to work today."

(Sneyd) VTel calls its new network WOW – for Wireless Open World. Vermont’s congressional delegation called it a "game changer" in terms of the breadth of the planned network.

The plan calls for customers to get high-speed Internet access for $10 a month for light users. Heavier use would carry a $35-a-month price.

VTel will offer even faster service to its existing customers in 14 southern Vermont towns by expanding an existing fiber-optic network. That network will also be used to deliver equally fast service to high schools across the state.

Guite says none of what his company will do is particularly innovative.

(Guite) "We’re simply doing what’s out there but isn’t normally done in the most rural areas. … We’re simply taking the state of the art and deploying it in Vermont and doing it with help from federal sources to help create local jobs."

(Sneyd) In theory, the new network will also create a cellular telephone signal throughout the state.

But Guite says the new technology will leap beyond cell phones because people will be able to use all kinds of hand-held devices to make phone calls over the Internet.

For VPR News, I’m Ross Sneyd.

(Host) In addition to this award, Vermont has won 250 million dollars in federal stimulus money for broadband, and for a fiber-optic network alongside the state’s electric distribution network.

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