Billing and Cash Flow

• Subscribers will get a monthly bill from WiredWest including any surcharge their town assesses. State and Federal mandated taxes will be included/itemized on the bill (e.g., for phone service). Note: Internet service is not taxed at the federal level.
• Collected surcharges are sent to the respective towns.
• WiredWest pays vendors for internet service (ISP), network operation, maintenance/repair, and back office services.
• WiredWest pays for bandwidth/backhaul, backhaul transport, and any required leasing of fiber.
• WiredWest directly pays pole license and bonding fees, insurance for equipment, electricity to huts for the towns.
• At the end of the year, if there are excess revenues beyond what needs to be retained for reserves, these will be distributed to towns with at least a 50% take rate in proportion to each town’s top line revenue excluding surcharges.

Town Responsibilities

• Finance, design, and build your independently owned fiber network within WiredWest guidelines, either with MBI or on your own.
• Build and pay for any capital expansion (e.g., connections to new homes or developments)
• Pay debt service and annual depreciation reserve either from taxes or subscriber surcharges.
• Set policy about who pays for physical connection from curb to premise with ONT installation. (e.g., town might pay for pre-subscribers but require those who sign up later to pay full cost).
• Make a good faith effort to achieve high take rate.

WiredWest Responsibilities

• Provide guidance for designing networks to facilitate regional operation. Also provide related advice about equipment choices, design, and financing of networks.
• Coordinate linkage of networks. Arrange for any required leasing of fiber, purchase of equipment needed for linkage, purchase of backhaul transport service and bandwidth. This may require some small equipment purchases by towns or WiredWest (~1k)
• Hire vendors to handle internet service, network operation, and back office services such as sales, billing, customer service, tech support, etc.
• Arrange and pay for insurance, maintenance of inside and outside plant, pole license and bonding fees, electricity, other operational costs, but not debt service or depreciation reserve.
• Manage cash flow retaining some earnings for necessary reserves and returning excess revenue to towns proportional to each town’s top line revenue.
• Collect and return to towns any surcharges each town may determine to charge its subscribers.
• Advocate on behalf of towns for necessary policies and cooperation from the state and/or private companies.