As towns near completion of building our networks, we must consider how we're going to manage operating them, and what to charge customers in order to meet expenses. Often the focus is on hiring an Internet Service Provider (ISP) with the lowest price. But the ISP cost turns out to be only a small part [...]
“WiredWest Is Town’s Cheaper Operator For Broadband, Say Consultants” By Katie Nolan Montague Reporter April 19, 2018 WENDELL - On Tuesday night, Jim Crowley of Holyoke Gas and Electric (HG&E) and Brian Richards of PineRidge Consulting presented a joint Wendell broadband committee and selectboard meeting with a comparison of costs for the town to operate a broadband network as an independent operator, or as a member of the WiredWest regional cooperative. The consultants considered administrative costs such as insurance, electrical power for the network electronic equipment, pole licensing, accounting, audits, legal fees, maintenance of the cables and other outdoor equipment, internet service provider (ISP) subscriber fees, and network backhaul (high bandwidth connection from the town’s electronic operation location to their wholesale ISP). The consultants’ report concluded that “Over time, as operator of a regional cooperative network, WiredWest could offer a better value to all members towns, as opposed to operating their network independently.” Because the consultants’ presentation and committee and citizen questions continued from 7pm until after 9pm, the joint meeting tabled all of its other agenda items, including item #9, “Possibility of revoting Town authorization of Broadband project,” until Tuesday, April 24 at 7pm. Approximately a dozen citizens attended the meeting, including Robbie Leppzer, author of an open letter to the selectboard affirming “strong support for building a municipally-owned broadband network in Wendell,” and other signers of this letter. Here is a link to download the full report (PDF - 1 MB): www.turningtide.com/…/Comparison_of_Broadband_Operational_M…
Some town officials think of WiredWest as a “Them” like another service provider trying to sell something. WiredWest is “Us.” It’s an approach to procuring services and managing our broadband networks as a team rather than individually. Now that we are nearing the point of putting networks into service, we have a choice of whether [...]
This event was designed for members of Select Boards, Broadband Committees and Finance Committees to familiarize them with the details of the newly designed regional operations plan offered by WiredWest in order to weigh it against other options. The plan presented covers operations of town networks after they are built. Since the Last Mile policy [...]
Reprinted from the Berkshire Eagle By Larry Parnass, lparnass@berkshireeagle.com "Productive." "Optimistic." After a year in the deep freeze, relations between state officials and broadband activists in Western Massachusetts appear to be thawing. Leaders of WiredWest used the words above to describe their meeting last week with Carolyn Kirk, the state's deputy secretary of housing and [...]
Reprinted from The Recorder By DIANE BRONCACCIO , Recorder Staff Thursday, March 30, 2017 Local officials say they hope the state’s revised broadband policy will break the gridlock on which the internet build-out for unserved towns has stalled over the last two years. “This new grant program is a huge step forward for last-mile broadband,” said [...]
By Larry Parnass, Reprinted from The Berkshire Eagle WORTHINGTON — Broadband advocates from Berkshire County and beyond pressed Thursday for the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to free up funding, speed decision-making and support regional solutions to a problem they say impairs civic life. Their sometimes sharply worded remarks took frequent aim at the MBI itself, saying [...]
By JIM LEVULIS, WAMC - Original post on WAMC.org http://cpa.ds.npr.org/wamc/audio/2017/01/wiredwestweb.mp3 Efforts to bring broadband internet to underserved areas of rural, western Massachusetts have been ongoing for more than a decade. Now the regional cooperative WiredWest has a new proposal. It comes after Governor Charlie Baker’s administration shook up and reviewed the efforts of the [...]
by Larry Parnass - The Berkshire Eagle Read full story NORTHAMPTON — Rather than build and run a sprawling regional broadband system, a nonprofit cooperative now seeks to fill a narrower but critical role for towns fighting to obtain fast internet connections. WiredWest leaders made this case Saturday to municipal officials from across Western Massachusetts: [...]
The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University is a public policy institute whose mission is to explore and understand cyberspace. Read the Center’s just-released long-researched case study on WiredWest. WiredWest: a Cooperative of Municipalities Forms to Build a Fiber Optic Network. Western Massachusetts Towns Create a New Model for Last-Mile Connectivity, but a [...]
