News from the Strafford Broadband Committee

A contract to provide broadband service in Strafford should, barring any unforeseen occurrence, be signed soon with WaveComm, a West Lebanon-based company with broadband transmission capability in Norwich and other locations in the Upper Valley.

A public informational meeting will be scheduled later in the month to introduce WaveComm and explain the cost of the service, how it will be provided and how residents may sign up.

Extending the service in Strafford, because of its hilly terrain, will be a fairly slow process and will initially depend on whether one's house is located in direct line-of-sight with one of the two access points in Strafford already established by WaveComm.

The arrangement with WaveComm was made possible by an incentive grant from the Vermont Agency of Commerce's Broadband Demonstration Project. A sub-committee of the Strafford Broadband Committee, composed of Bill Burden, Nate Hine and Steve Willbanks, has been negotiating the contract with WaveComm for the past several months.

The Strafford Broadband Committee

News from Luc Beaubien at FINOWEN

I am pleased to announced that FINOWEN has most recently brought on-line aPoint of Service for Lyme Center, NH. With this done, and with FINOWEN'snext PoS already in progress, I can now turn my attention to bringingservice to Strafford and South Strafford.We will be making preliminary site selections in the next few weeks as wellas canvassing the 70+ Strafford residents who have already contactedFINOWEN. Please spread the word around so that we can include as manyresidents in FINOWEN's coverage plans.
Kind regards,
Luc Beaubien,
President
FINOWEN
603-298-9510
LBeaubien@FINOWEN.net
20 Airpark Road,
Suite 2
West Lebanon, NH 03784

Tuesday, September 20, at 7PM at the Town Office

The next meeting of the Strafford Broadband Committee will be Tuesday, September 20, at 7PM at the Town Office.

The Purpose of this Blog

Hello,

I'm starting this blog as a repository of the emails related to obtaining high speed internet access in Strafford.

Please feel free to participate in the blog.

Marie Ricketts
mrickett@gmail.com

Strafford Broadband Committee

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:02:59 -0400, Chuck Sherman
wrote:

Dear SBC,
We had a productive meeting tonight.

Ron Boehm of ValleyNet and Bob Jacobson of WaveComm shared their experiences and capabilities. Ron will confer with the ValleyNet board to determine the level of their participation.

We discussed the technical capabilities of alternative equipment and the relative benefits of several potential broadband antenna mast locations. Testing has revealed that the windmill tower would be one favorable site.

We agreed to proceed with the survey, with a pre-stamped postcard questionnaire, adding a question to elicit what subscribers might be willing to pay:

Language will be added to the letter to indicate that this is not setting a price, but will be used to determine the feasibility of proceeding with expansion of the initial, limited, test implementation.

A postcard question such as the following will be crafted:
"I may be willing to pay up to $30__, $40__, $50__, $60__ more than $60__ per month for good broadband service."

We will ask Nellie to communicate this to Al & Laura Duey and ask them to launch the survey. Posters are to be placed at Coburns (and
elsewhere?) to remind full- and part-time residents to complete the survey. We did not set a completion date. Perhaps the Duey's will suggest one. We would like to make use of the results as we prepare cost estimates to be included in our grant application in October.

There was a consensus to proceed with the current plan and solicit grant support to expand it.

I have reviewed the grant application guidelines and drafted a Letter of Intent (attached) that I hope is responsive and reflects the program's expressed purpose of supporting ongoing projects, not the planning process. Please review and provide me with your comments and corrections as quickly as possible.


--Chuck

_____________
Chuck Sherman
129 Pennock Road
Strafford VT 05072
land 802-765-9630
cell 860-967-6543
Chuck.Sherman@Dartmouth.org

Meeting Summary

These are NOT the official minutes, but here's a short summary. We did form the "Strafford Broadband Committee". The next meeting will be Tuesday, August 9 at 7PM at the Town Office.

Al & Laura Duey, from the Vermont Rural Broadband Project, talked about the approach taken by other towns in Vermont. In most (if not all) cases, a group in the community does a survey to gauge interest in town. The survey is sent to everyone on the Grand List and Voter Checklist, and requests contact information and 911 addresses from respondents who are intersted in getting broadband. (The Rural Broadband Project has funds to conduct these surveys and compile the results.)

With results in hand, we can then approach vendors (who get only 911 addresses, with strict prohibition on using them for anything other than engineering studies) and hopefully choose one to proceed with.

The committee has decided to proceed with a study, with the Selectboard's approval (given at Wednesday's Selectboard meeting). We hope to have something out in the next week.

There is some state money for the implementation of broadband projects in rural Vermont; a deadline for initial proposals is coming up in the next month, for the next round of funding. We will try to have something, but realize that we may not have enough information by the deadline.

Chuck Sherman also filled us in on his plans to proceed with bringing broadband to his home, in conjunction with Wavecomm, which already has some towers in the area.
Additionally, we're going to explore ideas with Ron Boehm of ValleyNet, who is interested in the possibility of joining with other vendors to provide the ISP portion of the services. We hope he'll be able to attend next Tuesday's meeting.

Feel free to join the committee, attend the next meeting, etc.

I'll send official minutes along when I get them.

And look for (and respond to) your survey when it arrives!

-- Nellie Pennington
nelliep@sover.net

final confirmation of meeting Tuesday, August 2nd

Folks,

This email is final confirmation that a meeting will be taking place on Tuesday, August 2nd at 7:00PM at the Strafford Town Offices, to discuss the possibility of bringing broadband to Strafford.

I want to be very clear that this is merely a preliminary meeting to answer questions and help guide Strafford toward creating a broadband initiative. Al Duey, who has worked with towns throughout Vermont, will be attending to explain the process he has gone through and to answer questions and give guidance.

The meeting will be at the Strafford Town at 7 p.m., Tuesday, August 2nd.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with where the Town Offices are:
From the Sharon exit of I-89, head north on Route 132 (Route 132 does become dirt for part of it). When you reach South Strafford, Route 132 will bear right - you will take a left onto the Justin Morrill Memorial Highway. The town offices are located in Strafford Village on the left, about two miles north of South Strafford.

Space is very limited, but it the Town Office appears to be our best option.

Thanks,

Christopher L. Sargent, Planner
Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission
3117 Rose Hill
The King Farm
Woodstock, VT 05091
tel: 802-457-3188
fax: 802-457-4728
http://www.blogger.com/www.trorc.org

Letter to the Editor Strafford News 8/1/2005

To Strafford Residents:,

There will be a meeting in Strafford with the Broadband Council (within the Vermont Council on Rural Development) to discuss the depth of interest in Strafford for Broadband computer access on n Tuesday, August 2 at 7:00 PM at the Strafford Town Offices. If there is enough of a demand, the Broadband Council will help to seek a grant.

Everyone who is interested is urged to attend this important meeting.

Thanks,

Christopher L. Sargent, PlannerTwo Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commissiontel: 802-457-3188fax: 802-457-4728

Ed. Note: At the same time, Lew Sussmann has been keeping Strafford residents informed about another possible way to obtain high speed access in town---via subscription with Finowen for this service, such as has occurred in surrounding towns including Lyme Center and Thetford.

Luc Beaubien of Finowen wrote to Lew and said "It would be helpful to us if you could forward at least the addresses of those expressing interest in the Strafford/ S.Strafford area so that I can begin a feasibility analysis" -- but Lew believes that anyone interested in becoming a charter susbscriber (which means you would pay in advance for a year of service to allow them to set up a point of service here in town) should e mail Luc Beaubien at Finowen directly, and include your physical address as well so he can see where folks live on the map.

LBeaubien@Earthlink.net

LBeaubien@finowen.com