There is a one-time activation fee on all accounts.
Your town’s MLP may choose to add a monthly MLP fee to help defray depreciation reserve requirements and debt service for the money borrowed to build the network.
Getting Connected
When you sign up for service, your town’s MLP will bring a fiber connection from the network at the road to your house. The cost of this “drop” to your home will depend on how far you are from the road and whether you have overhead or underground utility service. The cost to you for this drop will depend on the available construction funds that your MLP has to work with.
Click on your town to sign up now:
Becket | Heath | New Salem | Rowe | Washington | Windsor
Questions? See the FAQ page for your town:
Becket | Heath | New Salem | Rowe | Washington | Windsor
Working Together
The towns of Becket, New Salem, Rowe, Washington and Windsor are charter member of WiredWest, a municipal co-op formed to bring broadband to towns in Western Massachusetts. WiredWest will be your towns Internet Service Provider and has contracted with Whip City Fiber to operate the network and serve our customers.
Why are the towns of Becket, New Salem, Rowe, Washington, and Windsor working with WiredWest?
By serving its member towns on a regional basis, WiredWest will reduce the administrative burden, cost and risks of owning and operating a fiber network. Customers will pay WiredWest for services, and as a non-profit cooperative, it will return excess revenues to its member towns.
What does Whip City Fiber do? Whip City Fiber is an internet service provider owned and operated by Westfield Gas + Electric. It has a successful track record serving customers in the city of Westfield and is working with several towns in Western Massachusetts to launch broadband service over municipal fiber networks. As a subcontractor to WiredWest, Whip City Fiber will operate and maintain our network and deliver service to our customers.
Keeping Prices Low for Small Town Broadband Networks
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 of the overall cost of operating a network, and ISPs vary as to what combination of services they provide. There are also infrastructure related costs such as: repair/maintenance, pole license fees, insurance, managing cash reserves to meet insurance deductibles, etc. Also, administrative costs such as hiring a manager to oversee operations, accounting, auditing, and legal services. Prices must be set to bring in enough revenue to cover all these costs, and all of the various pieces must be organized into a functioning whole. The number of customers and population density strongly affect the prices that must be charged.
It’s important to understand that WiredWest is not an ISP. Rather, it is a Coop of towns working together to manage our town-owned networks efficiently and cost-effectively, including hiring and overseeing an ISP for member towns. Sparsely populated towns would have to charge high prices to meet costs. The Coop allows us to spread the administrative costs and burden over a larger number of customers and keeps our prices as low as possible. Also, WiredWest is not a company looking to make a profit. It is governed by the member towns and any profits will be distributed back to the towns. By consolidating the administrative costs and burden of managing our networks, we are able to draw on a larger pool of expertise […]
WiredWest Is Town’s Cheaper Operator For Broadband, Say Consultants
“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…
Why Choose the Coop Approach to Managing Town Owned Networks?
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 to manage them as individual towns or as a Coop. As we look to make that decision, it’s instructive to review some history.
Towns have already benefited tremendously by participation in WiredWest. Here are some examples:
- The Last Mile funding we are getting from the State is the result of a lobbying effort of WiredWest’s founders dating back to 2008.
- Most of what each of our towns know about building and managing broadband networks traces back to our (WiredWest’s) research and sharing of information, including financial models and clarifications about regulation by DPU, etc.
- Many cost saving ideas and efficiencies such as consolidating legal and account costs and ring architecture for shared backhaul have come from WiredWest.
- WG+E is offering much lower ISP and maintenance costs as a result of WiredWest’s negotiating.
- WiredWest discovered and championed the use of MLP’s for running broadband networks. WW has continued to clarify legal and accounting matters relating to the use of MLP’s. Most recently regarding DLS’s guidance on broadband accounting, which is misleading. We are working with a qualified auditor to produce better guidance.
So, where would we be without WiredWest? It’s not a rhetorical questions. Towns now have […]
WiredWest Broadband Solution Workshop – January 28, 2017
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 dictates that every town must build and own its own infrastructure, the new WiredWest plan is focused on providing towns a way to operate and manage their networks and deliver service to townspeople in a regional and cost-effective manner.
Town leaders were presented with the plan details, provided take-away materials, questions were answered and town leaders were able to work through your town’s costs to participate in the WiredWest regional solution
Copies of all materials presented at the workshop with updates are available here.
Berkshire towns welcome change in Massachusetts Broadband Institute 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 economic development.
Their session in Northampton came 15 months after a Massachusetts Broadband Institute policy reversal halted earlier collaboration. The gulf opened after a former MBI executive director urged town leaders not to enter into a regional broadband network agreement with WiredWest, citing financial issues.
Since then, tension has characterized relations between WiredWest loyalists and the state.
Last week’s summit is believed to be the first since talks broke down in early 2016 — a crisis that led Gov. Charlie Baker to impose a “pause” in planning for last-mile broadband coverage in unserved communities.
Jim Drawe of Cummington, chairman of WiredWest’s executive committee, praised the March 9 meeting with Kirk and other state officials.
“It was very refreshing to work with her,” Drawe said of Kirk, calling the former Gloucester mayor “decisive” and supportive.
“We left the meeting with the clear and common goal to move forward as soon as possible,” Drawe said.
Kirk said Wednesday she accepted an invitation from Marilyn Wilson, a Rowe Select Board member and former WiredWest delegate, to meet.
“I felt like the time was right to have a roll-up-your sleeves, collaborative discussion with those in the room,” Kirk said. “The input I received was very helpful.”
Steve Nelson of Washington, a former WiredWest leader who is now his town’s delegate to the group, said the session with Kirk was significant.
“It’s more than […]