Tiny Mt Washington Builds Fiber-to-the-Home Community Broadband Bits Podcast 212

Published: July 27, 2016, 2 p.m.

b'Overlooked by the incumbent telephone company, Mount Washington in the southwest corner of Massachusetts is becoming one of the smallest FTTH communities in the country by investing in a municipal fiber network. A strong majority of the town committed to three years of service and the state contributed $230,000 to build the network after a lot of local groundwork and organizing.\\n\\nSelect Board member Gail Garrett joins us for episode 212 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] to discuss their process and the challenges of crafting an economical plan on such a small scale. \\n\\nIt turns out that the rural town had some advantages - low make-ready costs from the lack of wires on poles and no competition to have to worry about. So they are moving forward and with some cooperation from the telephone company and electric utility, they could build it pretty quickly. We also discuss what happens to those homes that choose not to take service when it is rolled out - they will have to pay more later to be connected.\\n\\nRead the rest of our coverage of Mt Washington here.\\n\\nRead the transcript of this episode here.\\n\\nWe want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.\\n\\nThis show is 21 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. \\n\\nYou can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.\\n\\nThanks to Roller Genoa for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Safe and Warm in Hunter\'s Arms."'