COLRAIN — The Selectboard has asked Westfield Gas & Electric (WG&E) for an intermunicipal agreement, as the town prepares for its Last-Mile broadband build-out. The board wants to review the agreement before deciding whether to hire Westfield Gas & Electric to oversee Colrain’s $3.7 million broadband network.
Aaron Bean, operations manager at WG&E, gave an hour-long presentation to the board this week.
“What we’ve proposed is to act as your agent, to get you through design and construction,” he said. Besides overseeing the design and build-out, WG&E could run the network for towns that want it. That would include servicing Colrain broadband customers, oversee billing and network maintenance.
As a city-owned utility with a “Municipal Light Plant” designation, WG&E, also known as “Whip City Fiber,” has built out several “fiber-hoods” in Westfield. Just recently, the company was given a $15 million bond to build a fiber-optic network, serving about 12,000 more Westfield homes by 2018.
“It’s a good time,” he said, referring to prospects for broadband build-outs for other western Massachusetts towns. “We’re in this growth phase and we’re taking on other fiber-hoods.”
Bean said the 117-year-old gas and electric company started building its own fiber-optic network in the 1990s — at first for its own communications system. Then it built Westfield’s “middle mile” broadband system for MBI.
When Comcast began offering internet service, it was available for residential subscribers but not for commercial businesses in Westfield, said Bean. That’s when WG&E started offering commercial broadband service to businesses.
When asked if Westfield approves of the company’s working with the unserved hilltown communities, Bean said the town supports it — as long as other towns’ broadband costs are not borne by Westfield rate-payers.
“We’re trying to minimize our costs,” said Bean. He said WG&E could have charged $100 per month for its broadband TV-phone-internet package to subscribers, but by reducing the subscription rate to $70 per month, “we were able to triple our take rate,” he said.
If Colrain wanted Westfield G&E to be its internet service provider, the utility would probably want a five-year contract, he said.
Bean estimates that about 60 percent of Colrain’s 700 to 800 homes would subscribe to broadband service, if it were available.
“Is $3.7 million enough to build this network?” asked Town Coordinator Kevin Fox.
“I can’t say yet,” Bean replied. “It’s a good start.”
Bean said there could be savings if the towns regionally shared some services, such as customer billing.
Signing an intergovernmental agreement would be the first step for Colrain and WG&E to work together.
“I think this is a good deal,” said David Greenberg, a former town Broadband Committee member and WiredWest delegate. “I think most of the towns around us want to work with Whip City and we’ll have a good start toward regionalization.”
Selectboard members asked Bean to forward an intermunicipal agreement to them.
The Selectboard seemed elated by the prospect of moving forward on town broadband. Two years ago, voters approved a $2.4 million bond bill, and the process for all unserved towns has been stalled.
“This was the best information I’ve come away with,” remarked Selectboard member Mark Thibodeau.
“I think it’s really exciting,” agreed board member Eileen Sauvageau. “I feel like somebody moved a rock away from a (stuck) tire or something.”
Lynn DiTullio of the Broadband Committee said the Westfield utility is “large enough to represent us to the state and, in some ways, small enough to be our partner. I hate to think what would have happened to these small towns without them.”
In Westfield, hometown subscribers get 1 gigabit service for $69.95 per month. The cost for additional towns, like Colrain, would depend on how many miles the build-out involves, on how many customers and on connection costs between homes and on the utility poles.