Future being laid for fiber-optic line network in county

Danny Sullivan is on a mission. A Cooper resident for over 30 years who has worked in information technology for as long, he believes in the future of fiber‑optic as the best possible means of providing eastern Washington County residents and businesses, not to mention all of Maine, with a successful future utilizing the Internet for work and play. "We are an underserved area, no doubt about it," he says of Cooper and the surrounding communities, "but Maine is, too." He adds, "People aren't going to move here if there are no good connections. We have to give the tools to people so that they can stay here."
He and a number of others have created the Washington County Fiber Initiative (WCFI) as a means to educating and researching the feasibility of bringing fiber to their region of Maine, a region that currently has very few options for Internet access. Sullivan installed a 20‑foot tower on his house in order to receive a wireless signal. "We've always had a substandard signal," he says.
The Cooper resident first realized the scope of the connectivity problem when a meeting held in Cooper in 2011 with a Fairpoint representative about pervasive telephone outages and connection problems was winding down. Sullivan asked the representative about DSL expansion to Cooper. "He said basically no, they were done." Sullivan and Cooper resident Stuart Shotwell met at the meeting and decided to spearhead the effort to find out more about Internet options with the help of others. "We talked to everyone. It was the same response. We're rural, not enough customers." One provider told the men that they needed a minimum of 25 homes per mile, far more than the sparsely settled and geographically challenging areas nestled between Route 1 and Route 9.
Because the large companies are not interested, the WCFI is looking to local solutions around the country as models to emulate. "We're in a vacuum, the only way to do it is ourselves," Sullivan says.
Whatever WCFI determines will ultimately work, it will most likely tap into the Maine Fiber Company Three‑Ring Binder fiber‑optic strands along Route 1. A major project in Maine, the Three‑Ring Binder is stringing fiber on existing telephone poles along Route 1 in Washington County as one "ring" of three in the state. Federal funds were granted for the project with the intent to provide the infrastructure backbone to underserved areas. From that backbone other providers, such as Axiom Technologies of Machias, would provide Internet connection services from the home to the fiber network. Sullivan hopes that eventually his group will be able to hook into the binder project's Route 1 network with their own strung fiber network.
Originally his area of concern was Cooper. "Then so many started getting in touch with us," Sullivan notes, that the area of interest grew to about 111 miles snaking from Pembroke on Route 1, along Route 214 into Charlotte, out on the Cooper Road to Route 9, from there to the South Princeton Road along to Woodland, then down to Route 192, connecting back to Machias and along Route 1 back to Pembroke. "It all intersects with the Three‑Ring Binder." He adds that there are about 911 homes and businesses on the route, but a more formal count with defined segments will be conducted in the future.
Along with the daunting prospect of finding the funds for such a project, Sullivan notes the lobbying pressure in Washington from large companies has begun a movement to prohibit community groups from forming network cooperatives. At this time 20 states have enacted legislation discouraging communities from creating their own publicly owned networks, despite a similar battle having been fought many years ago by large electric utilities to keep out smaller cooperatives. There are no states in New England that have embraced such legislation at this time.
While the larger policy questions of Internet access are throwing shadows across the future for sparsely populated areas of the country, the Cooper group faces logistics such as topography and funding and convincing others that fiber, not wireless or broadband, is the best option to strive for. "Basically we have to turn the debate to fiber because of data transmission," Sullivan says. The future of Internet use is only going to grow -- just watch how teenagers use three different Internet‑accessed devices at once, Sullivan adds.
A major problem that fiber would easily surmount is what is termed "asymmetry," Sullivan comments. The Connect Cooper website explains that typically an Internet user of DSL, wireless or cable would have 1MB download and 345k upload, the equivalent in telephone terms of being able to listen to 1 million words, the download speed, but to speak only 345,000, the upload speed. "The symmetrical piece is so important," Sullivan notes, for people working at home, for large businesses, for retirees with grandchildren across the country and for today's youth. "We are going to need to have this as this shift [to increased Internet applications] gets more prolific."
"Fiber is future proof," Sullivan says. "As technology changes, you only need to upgrade at the ends, not in the middle because the glass has such high capacity."
Communities around the country have struggled with the same access issues, and one group in Vermont has provided an example of what the WCFI group can do to help themselves. The East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network was formed in 2008, ultimately with 23 communities signing on. In 2011 the network began stringing fiber. Their advice to Sullivan, who went to Vermont to meet with them, was: "Pick a spot, start with three to four miles. Get that under your belt." To that end, WCFI has contacted an engineer about a feasibility study and is actively talking with agencies about funding.
Ultimately, Sullivan believes a fiber‑optic network will make or break the economic viability of the region, which is a microcosm of the state and the country's failure to build for the future. He notes that in a ranking of the fastest Internet in the world by country, the U.S. didn't make the top 15 and is out‑performed by South Korea, Latvia and Bulgaria. He references a 2009 study by the University of Maine on the number of micro‑businesses in the state broken down by county. Maine had 171,560 micro‑businesses, or businesses with four or fewer employees. Washington County had 5,250, with an overall percentage of micro‑businesses ranking high at 32% of total businesses, whereas the state's counties averaged a tick above 20%. "If Maine were to unleash the potential of these businesses with fiber-based connections this economy would soar. Politicians are always talking about the economy, jobs, etc. etc., but they ignore one of the most proven job creation engines already in our possession C technology."
For more information about WCFI, visit <www.connectingcooper.com>, or contact Sullivan at 214‑4516 or email <danny04657@gmail.com>.