Broadband access focus of new initiatives; Fiber-optic line could aid Lubec

Lubec stands to benefit from a plan to bring better Internet service to Grand Manan, according to Crave Technologies Ltd. President Howard Small. In December, the Lubec Select Board accepted Small's offer to locate gear in the fire department headquarters to link a fiber-optic cable crossing the bridge from Campobello Island to a major Internet provider.
"In the 21st century that would be the equivalent of building an interstate highway into Lubec," Small said in a presentation to the select board on December 9. The board approved the deal on December 22 without further debate. The two fiber-optic cables join together in a cabinet in the fire chief's office, according to Town Administrator Renée Gray.
From there, Crave Technologies' cable crosses the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Bridge to Campobello Island. It will cross the island to link with NB Power's electrical and fiber-optic cable to Grand Manan -- providing a direct data link to the mainland and replacing Crave's microwave system, which Small intends to keep on standby.
Small did not wish to name the large Internet provider, but Gray identifies it as Telia, a Swedish company with North American operations. The two fiber-optic cables could have been spliced "on the pole," Small told the select board, but doing it in municipal facilities brings broadband to the town administration and opens the possibility, some day, of high speed Internet for homes and businesses throughout Lubec. "We're taking one of the biggest obstacles to better broadband out of your way," Small said on December 9.
"We will not be providing services in Maine," Small says in a recent interview. "They [Lubec] certainly can use what we have brought there, but we are not authorized to sell any service in the U.S.," he says.
This brings the dream of fast Internet service in the Fundy Isles closer to reality, but Small stresses that he is not there yet -- and people should not start calling just now asking when they can hook up.
NB Power made this project possible by including fiber optics with new undersea power cables laid in 2019, one from Campobello to Deer Island, the other from Campobello to Grand Manan. Electricity reaches the islands by cable strung on towers from the Charlotte County mainland to Deer Island, but no Internet link runs along these same towers yet.
Small announced last year that he reached an agreement with NB Power allowing his company access to the undersea fiber-optic cables. In return, Crave granted NB Power access to portions of its fiber-optic infrastructure on Grand Manan, according to the news release announcing the deal. Small then found an Internet provider that agreed to run its cable as far as Lubec. Small says private capital funded this project, with no taxpayers' money involved. He declines to state the capital cost.
Lubec has no immediate plan to set up an Internet utility, according to Gray, but, she says, "At least the door has been opened." She says the town's economic development committee is also working with other Internet companies.