The pandemic has deepened the need for rural broadband

CONNECTIVITY

Nearly everything we do today is connected to the internet: We send emails, we check the weather on our smartphones, and even our refrigerators and doorbells communicate with the cloud via internet connection. Our first responders, schools and businesses are not different. Police and fire need broadband for their phones and radios to keep us safe; students need connections for remote learning; and business owners rely upon the internet to process payments and promote their business. Unfortunately, there are many places in America where dependable internet is unavailable, especially in rural areas.

Bristol, located in the heart of the Lakes Region with 3,000 residents, was one such rural community. Internet service providers could not justify the investment to build and upgrade the network here. Without reliable high-speed internet, our students and businesses were at a competitive disadvantage and at risk of falling behind.

We saw these risks and decided we couldn’t wait for others to tackle the problem. Economic Development Committee Chair Bill Dowey and I came together to create Bristol Broadband Now. Through business, community and higher education partnerships, the town built its own public-private network that’s already delivering some of the fastest internet speeds available today.

The network infrastructure, built by eX2 Technology, cost $1.8 million to complete and was funded through local, state and federal dollars. Hub66, our internet service provider, offers fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) service, considered the fastest and highest standard for internet delivery. Bristol residents can now get up to 1 gigabyte per second for $89 a month — a speed that lets you download a movie in seconds, not minutes. Think of how this speed of service can help do things that more connected areas take for granted, like process online payments or access new teaching technologies.

The pandemic has deepened the need for rural broadband, with higher demand for remote school and work.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, at least 19 million Americans do not have access to broadband, and many more have access but at substandard speeds or costs beyond what they can afford. High-speed internet service puts communities like Bristol at an advantage. Not only does speed outpace other rural areas, but with the IBEAM connection to the University of New Hampshire System, we can build workforce development programs with high-tech employers like Freudenberg and the Tenney Advanced Science Center. We’re the only municipality in the country with this type of connection and the economic opportunity that comes with it.

New Hampshire cannot be a state of “haves” and “have nots” when it comes to internet service. It’s why funding, like the $65 billion broadband expansion package in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act now before Congress, is so essential to our success.

We believe Bristol Broadband Now and Connect Grafton County Now, the 353-mile broadband network currently being engineered, will be models for the rest of New Hampshire and the country. Reliable, high-speed internet connections being built by municipalities and counties in partnership with the private sector are needed today if we are to build a strong future for New Hampshire.

Nicholas Coates is town administrator of Bristol.