After wrapping the Three Ring Binder Project in 2012, the Maine Fiber Company announced another major milestone this week: an audit of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program project federal grant is complete.
This means the $25.6 million federal grant has effectively been closed out. After years of work to install miles upon miles of fiber optic network, the project has met its goal of providing access to high-speed, affordable Internet connections to rural Mainers and businesses.
However, the challenge now is to connect people to the network through their Internet providers, said Maine Fiber Company Vice President of Business Development Jeff McCarthy. The Maine Fiber Company owns the 1,100-mile fiber optic network, which uses middle-mile dark fiber to help get rural areas “online” as well as interconnect the routes in Maine with Canada and Boston.
Local Internet service providers and others can lease the space on the network, and then provide the direct connections to homes, businesses and others that want to access high-speed Internet. Currently, according to McCarthy, the company has 24 customer agreements for leasing fiber on the network, with 18 of those based in Maine. Locally, the company is working on high-speed connection for the University of New England, to connect the Biddeford and Westbrook campuses, he told the Journal Tribune.
This project is extremely important for a state with so much real estate, where rural Mainers have often been left out of the loop when it comes to accessing the Internet and getting connected through technology. Maine continues to have large swaths of land that are cellphone dead zones ”“ and not only in northern Maine.
Dial-up Internet should not be the only option for any Mainer in this age of the Internet. Not only is the Internet there for entertainment, it offers valuable communication, business and educational opportunities. Businesses can have video conferences or training online, students can take classes remotely or connect with classrooms on the other side of the continent, and families can see and speak with each other no matter the miles between them ”“ provided they all have access to high-speed Internet.
The wonders of the Web range far and wide, but without the infrastructure to access them, people will fall well behind those who see the value in investing in technology.
Those values will be the topic of a forum titled “Broadband and the Economy-Opportunity and Challenges” set for Wednesday, April 30 from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the University of New England’s Harold Alfond Forum in Biddeford. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. To register, contact Marian Alexandre at malexandre@smpdc.org or 324-2952.
Blair Levin, a communications and society fellow at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., will be the featured speaker. Levin had served as the executive director of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative for the Federal Communications Commission, where he oversaw the development of a National Broadband Plan, which was mandated by Congress as part of the stimulus funds in 2009. The $25.6 million federal grant that the Maine Fiber Company received for the Three Ring Binder Project came from those funds.
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Today’s editorial was written by City Editor Robyn Burnham Rousseau on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.
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