Read the Report

It recently became clear that a rational, data driven analysis comparing the financial impacts of regionalization with towns going it alone was needed for all involved. Only with such a comparison could towns make informed, eyes wide open, decisions on how best to proceed with bringing broadband to their citizens. And this data will assist our elected and appointed leaders in their effort to weigh the pros and cons of the range of solutions to bridge our digital divide. This analysis is now complete and provides an in-depth financial comparison of a regional broadband network model to a standalone model. It includes an online app and can be applied to any of our towns. The report is now available by clicking here.

This data-driven analysis uses as a standard the Leverett, MA model – whose currently operating ISP & Network services are fully outsourced. Known capital costs from Leverett’s project and town operational cost estimates from the MBI are utilized. These provide the basis for comparing building and operating fiber-optic networks in individual western Massachusetts towns vs. towns jointly building and operating a fiber-optic network through a regional cooperative.

The results of the analysis are exceptionally compelling and show two important things — first, that monthly fees for subscribers in towns belonging to a regional network will be far lower than if they resided in towns operating stand-alone networks. And second, the analysis shows that smaller, less affluent towns can still afford to build long-term fiber broadband infrastructure instead of low bandwidth, wireless stopgaps.

We highly recommend sharing the Regionalization Analysis with your town officials. A press release with a link to the report was also released, and is available here.