New Vermont CUD report

[Sean Gonsalves]

Good evening all,

I know some folks in this group had an interest in the Vermond CUD model.

Well today - in partnership with the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, we (ILSR) Community Broadband Networks Initiative releaseds a new report examining how the state of Vermont is supercharging its telecommunications infrastructure efforts to reach the unconnected by putting its weight behind community broadband-driven efforts.

The report - Neighborly Networks: Vermont's Approach to Community Broadband [pdf] - traces the emergence of a unique public-public partnership arrangement that first appeared in the Green Mountain State in 2008. The Communications Union Districts (CUD) model first emerged more than a decade and a half ago among a coalition of towns in the eastern part of the state long-ignored by for-profit Internet Service Providers. There, a collection of community broadband champions came together to prove that the solution to the broken marketplace lay internal to east-central Vermont. ECFiber, a publicly owned, nonprofit ISP was borne of that effort, and began bringing affordable, fast, reliable service to households in the region.

Here is the link to rest of the story with a link to report etc.

https://communitynets.org/content/new-report-neighborly-networks-vermonts-approach-community-broadband

Sean Gonsalves

Associate Director for Communications

Community Broadband Networks Initiative 

Institute for Local Self Reliance

[Bob Espindola]

Than you Sean!