A certain calm has returned to the effort to bring broadband service to communities that have no or little reliable internet access.
This is probably a good thing, given the tension and turmoil that roiled the effort during the last six months, including the decision to delay release of state money to towns while Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration examined the whole process, including the WiredWest cooperative proposal.
The state’s Mass. Broadband Institute controls about a third of the project’s estimated costs, meaning that few, if any, towns can go forward on their own.
Until the Baker review, WiredWest had represented the leading approach to providing broadband to towns without it in western Mass. But recent developments have added factors to the mix; the state installed new leadership for the Last Mile Broadband Project. And since May, state grants have been awarded in Middlefield and Mount Washington to advance their respective internet expansion plans.
Meanwhile, WiredWest revised its plans to change ownership of network assets, enable towns to withdraw from the cooperative and handle outsourced services differently — three areas questioned by MBI and some of the cooperative’s own member towns.
What the public now is hearing is an emphasis on “flexibility” designed to identify a solution that best suits the needs of a particular community.
“We’re agnostic on the technology but focused on the deliverable,” said Peter Larkin, the new MBI chairman. “We want 96 percent coverage in the community. They come to us with a proposal, we’ll entertain the conversation. We’ll have our experts compare notes with their experts, and hopefully we’ll come up with a path forward.”
Of course, even this new spirit of cooperation has its limits, as Montague found out. The town, along with Hardwick, a community on the southeast end of the Quabbin Reservoir, had thought they had found their own answer with the New Jersey-based Matrix Design Group building a fiber optic network.
That wasn’t how the state saw it.
First, MBI’s staff recommended going with telecommunications giant Comcast instead. This recommendation was backed up when Karen Charles Peterson, the state’s telecommunications and cable commissioner, released a report supporting Comcast over Matrix. Peterson said in her report that there was significant concern over Matrix’s financial stability.
If this wasn’t persuasive enough, though, the state said there would be no state money unless the town’s accepted the Comcast “recommendation.”
Regardless of Montague’s decision to go along, the message here for all the communities waiting for a last-mile plan, including the WiredWest towns, is that MBI will have the last word. Yes, there may be a conversation between participants about plans, but the group holding a third of the purse will have the final say.
Will that heavy hand bring broadband more efficiently to rural communities? Stay tuned.