MBI was established in 2008 when the MA Legislature passed emergency funding to address the lack of critical broadband service in 44 unserved towns.
MBI built the “MB123” middle-mile network with state and federal funds. It provides backhaul connection points for last-mile networks and direct fiber-optic connections to Community Anchor Institutions in 123 municipalities, but no last mile connections to homes or businesses. The original design was for a ring architecture that would automatically reroute internet traffic if a line goes down, however due to shortfalls many towns that need this most are on spurs, so if a line goes down, whole towns could be out of service for extended periods if they depend solely on MB123 Middle Mile backhauls.
After the Middle Mile was finished, in 2014 the legislature granted MBI an additional $50 million to be used in Western Massachusetts to address the lack of last-mile internet infrastructure. $40 million is allocated towards that purpose. $5M was taken for administration and another $5M for partially served cable towns. MBI initially worked closely with WiredWest on the planning, financing and deployment of a regional network. The plan was for WiredWest to ultimately own and operate the network on behalf of our member towns.
Unfortunately, In December of 2015, MBI abruptly and publicly announced that it would not fund the WiredWest plan that it originally endorsed. Instead, it chose to work individually with towns on networks they would own and operate. For many towns this is not practical. Governor Baker stepped in a few months later, re-organized the effort, and appointed Peter Larkin as his envoy and Bill Ennen as Town Liaison. The new regime is more flexible but places a heavy burden on towns. WiredWest is assisting member towns through MBI’s process and planning to connect the individual town networks into a regionally operated network in order to reduce costs and ease the burden on towns.