[Info-vax] US Broadband

[Robert A. Brooks]

Rather than whining about things, we rolled up our sleeves and voted to
build our own FTTH system.

Below are a few pointers to relevant info regarding our project.

We expect it'll go live sometime between April and June.  We're a small 
rural town of roughly 2000 people, about 2 hours west of Boston, MA. 
There is no cable TV; DSL covers about 10% of the town; another 40% use 
satellite, and about 25% use dialup.  Cell coverage is spotty at best, 
and quite unreliable.

We have about 39 miles of road and about 800 premises on our active 
ethernet system.  Only one business (a coop market).

We voted as a town in April 2012 to allocate $3.6M for the project, 
which will be paid back by residential taxes for about 20 years after 
the completion of the project.  By using a tax-based bond, rather than a 
revenue-based one, we'll get a much lower interest rate.

http://www.leverett.ma.us/content/broadband-committee

http://www.leverett.ma.us/content/leverett-broadband-frequently-asked-questions

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/how-the-tiny-town-of-leverett-got-itself-the-internet

http://www.muninetworks.org/content/new-case-study-leverett-mass-muni-network

Now back to building and testing a few layered products in preparation 
for the V8.4-1H1 field test . . .

-- 

                       -- Rob