Many organizations in Vermont have been working diligently on the various elements of our broadband strategy, a great testament to the importance of broadband to the future of Vermont.
Those efforts have been redoubled in the last few months in order to be ready for the opportunity of broadband stimulus funding.
The Vermont Office of Economic Stimulus and Recovery (ESR) has been asked by the Governor and now the Legislature to coordinate, to the extent possible, stimulus funding, including broadband stimulus funding. We also appreciate the support and encouragement that the offices of Vermont’s Congressional delegation have provided to a coordinated approach to broadband stimulus funding. We continue to believe that a comprehensive coordinated strategy is the best way to maximize the benefit Vermont receives from this opportunity.
Vermont has the opportunity to be a national leader in bringing the benefits of broadband to all of our residents, businesses, and institutions. We received responses from more than 20 different organizations to our March 6 Request for Comments on a coordinated broadband strategy for Vermont. Potential projects proposed covered many elements of a broadband strategy.
We believe that the responses we received realistically support asking for funding for some very substantial undertakings, including providing broadband access to all of Vermont’s remaining unserved residents and businesses, improved access to high-capacity backhaul and institutional networking throughout the state, and supplementing these efforts with efforts to improve broadband use, adoption, data collection, and mapping. Thanks to the work of many over the years, Vermont is in a position to show how a small state can produce a truly comprehensive effort. This is an exciting prospect.
In order to be able to tell this story to the federal funders the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) - in the most compelling way, we now need to move into a new phase of our efforts. We must move from a collection of unconnected proposals from different groups to a set of proposals that all fit together, both geographically and across the different elements of an overall strategy.
Unfortunately, there is almost certainly not going to be enough stimulus money available for Vermont to fund every good idea, and the NTIA and the RUS will make the final funding decisions. We intend to use our ability to advise these agencies on state priorities to point them strongly in the direction of a coordinated set of projects that address the needs of the state.
Does this mean that we are going to have to make some choices about which projects receive the greatest support from the state? Indubitably yes, although a certain amount of self-organizing is happening among the various groups who want stimulus funding, and we do want to continue to encourage that. However, not prioritizing support for projects from Vermont is likely to be almost as bad as failing to support any projects. Choices are an inevitable part of our job.
How we plan to encourage coordinated proposals and make choices when we must is the subject of a new “Roadmap” document that our office has produced. See:
State Broadband Coordination Efforts We are fortunate to have a surplus of ideas in the state, especially how to serve unserved areas in Vermont. That presents some challenges in the process of crafting Vermont’s request to Washington for broadband stimulus funding, but all in all, it is a good problem to have.
Chris Campbell
