Central Vermont Internet: Communities Commit To Communications Union District Community Broadband Bits Podcast 298
b'Earlier this month, twelve towns in central Vermont chose Town Meeting Day to ask local voters whether or not they want to band together to improve connectivity. Each community chose to participate in forming a regional Communications Union District, which will allow them to plan, bond for, and develop regional Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) infrastructure. For episode 298 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast, Christopher interviews Jeremy Hansen, local Select Board Member and the person who spearheaded the effort to bring the issue to voters in his region.As Jeremy tells it, he didn\\u2019t need to do much convincing when local Vermonters learned about the Communications Union District structure. Most of the people in central Vermont rely on DSL and they overwhelmingly find it inadequate for their needs. The Communications Union District allows several communities to combine their strengths to work toward a single goal. Like water of sewer districts, the entity can issue revenue bonds so the infrastructure is publicly owned, but user funded. ECFiber is organized as a Communications Union District and serves 24 member towns in the eastern part of the state.Christopher and Jeremy talk about how Jeremy researched, heightened awareness, and how when voters understood the pros and cons, their own common sense led them to approve this first step. He describes what\\u2019s next and what he\\u2019d like to see happen with the Central Vermont Internet initiative.This show is 24 minutes long and can be played on this page or\\xa0via iTunes\\xa0or the tool of your choice\\xa0using this feed.Read the transcript for this show here.You can\\xa0download this\\xa0mp3 file directly from here. Listen to\\xa0other episodes here\\xa0or view all episodes\\xa0in our index.Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is\\xa0Warm Duck Shuffle\\xa0and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.'