BRIGHTON – NEK Community Broadband, celebrated four grant awards at its Island Pond facility, October 30. The event marked the first customer to receive service as a result of a $17,463,911 USDA ReConnect grant award, funding service to every town in Essex County and towns in eastern Orleans and Caledonia counties.
photo by Paul Fixx
Christa Shute, NEK Broadband executive director announced the design and field collection across the 25 towns to be serviced with ReConnect grant funds is well under way. Construction of the 351-mile project is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2025 and last through 2026.
USDA State Director for Rural Development (RD) in Vermont and New Hampshire Sarah Waring was on hand to announce a $2,847,276 award to NEK Broadband through the USDA Community Connect Grant program in a highly competitive national competition,
The grant will enable NEK Broadband to bring fiber-optic high speed internet to every unserved address in Groton.
Shute remarked, “The USDA-RD has been, and remains, a critical source of funding to help fulfill our mission of bringing service to the many thousands of unserved in our 71 town district. The areas served by these two grants represent a large portion of the district that has less than six people per mile.“
The first customer to receive service under the ReConnect grant said, “Now that NEK Broadband has been installed, we can not only work from home without any concerns about connectivity and speed, but we can turn our home into a smart home for the energy savings and security we want, connect with friends and family, and do so many more things that were previously unavailable to us before this upgrade.”
photo by Paul Fixx
“We are thrilled to partner with NEK Broadband to make high-speed internet a reality for communities that have waited too long for adequate service,” said Waring. “This investment in rural broadband is critical to ensuring that all Vermonters have the tools to succeed, especially in today’s digital economy.”
Senator Peter Welch joined Sarah Waring and Christa Shute, NEK Broadband’s executive director, at the gathering. Sen. Welch is chair of the Rural Development and Energy Subcommittee. “The last few years have shown all of us how important high-speed broadband is. From online school and remote work to telemedicine, a good connection is essential,” he said.
photo by Paul Fixx
Deputy director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB), Rob Fish, announced two recent grant awards to NEK Broadband approved on September 30. A $4 million construction grant and a $21 million grant to be used as a match for a future Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) grant.
The pre-application period for BEAD grants opens late this year with the final application deadline in the spring of 2025. While it will be a number of years before the entire project is complete, according to Shute, the latest grant funding will serve the areas most in need and is critical to the overall success of the project.
NEK Broadband has constructed 651 miles of fiber optic infrastructure, making service available to 8,200 addresses with 1,200 of them already connected, according to the organization’s annual report.
While the recent USDA awards don’t directly benefit the Hardwick area, some customers are already connected and construction funded through other grant awards is underway. The company shared the following service availability and construction plans for the Hardwick area:
Work is underway in areas of Hardwick partially funded by the town through an ARPA grant matched by both the VCBB and NEK Broadband. Service in those areas is planned for late 2024 into early 2025. The Jeudevine Library has already been connected through a special arrangement.
photo by Paul Fixx
Customers in portions of Walden have already been connected and construction is underway to reach most of the remaining households with electric service. In Greensboro construction is underway around Caspian Lake and on Craftsbury Road, with service planned for late 2024 into early 2025
In Stannard work is expected to start early in 2025 with service available by mid-year.
A merger of NEK Broadband and CV Fiber in August incorporated CV Fiber towns in the Gazette area.
In Woodbury, service is available in most locations along and west of Vt. Rte. 14. Eastern parts of Woodbury (Bliss, E. Hill and Keene Farm Roads) will see construction begin soon and service become available sometime in early 2025.
Service is currently available in the eastern two-thirds of Calais where there was no service before.
Construction is underway along the eastern side of Cabot, with service expected in 2025. Western parts of Cabot will see construction in late 2025 contingent on grant funds.
Plans for construction in western parts of Marshfied late in 2025 are contingent on the timing of grant funds. Construction in Plainfield is also contingent on the timing of grant funds with plans to build beginning in late 2025 into 2026.
NEK Community Broadband dba NEKCV is a community-driven organization working to ensure every resident across 71 towns in northeast and central Vermont with utility service has access to high-speed internet with speeds up to 2 gigabits per second. The communications union district is committed to investing profits into the network, increasing affordability and supporting digital access and literacy. To learn more visit nekbroadband.org.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
