Group seeks to bring faster Internet service to Franklin County
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – It’s bigger. It’s stronger. It’s faster.

That’s the pitch members of the newly formed Rural Broadband Initiative are using to boost interest in high-speed Internet access in Franklin County.

The group says that with only dial-up Internet service available to the majority of Franklin County residents, people here lack an efficient and speedy on-ramp to the information superhighway.

“We can’t do 21st Century business with 19th Century technology,” explains Wilton-businessman J. Dwight, project committee chair for RBI.

While information moves through regular dial-up Internet service at around 56 kilobytes per second, broadband allows information to gush into and out of a computer five times faster, at least, and most often, a lot faster.

RBI consultant Claudia Richards uses a pipe analogy saying water (or information) trickles through a pipe with dial-up, but with broadband, she explains, it surges through.

“It’s industrial strength Internet access,” says Sam Elowitch, RBI project coordinator.

Currently, Franklin County residents in Carrabassett Valley, Jay and New Sharon are the only ones with broadband access and with the amount of business and residential users in Farmington and Wilton, those two towns should be next, RBI argues. The rest of the county should follow.

‘How it starts’

Last week, the non-profit grassroots group was awarded a $7,500 grant from the Maine Community Foundation to conduct an online and print survey of businesses and residents in the county to quantify the market for broadband service.

Elowitch and Dwight say education will be a big part of the survey as many Internet users in the area aren’t aware what broadband is, or that it is even feasible.

With the results, RBI hopes to make a strong public statement that broadband is needed in the area.

Then, it’s up to broadband providers to compete over who gets to serve the area. In the end, Elowitch would like to see at least two providers in the area, that way residents and business owners get to choose the plan that works best for them.

Getting an organized voice is what puts the wheels in motion to bringing high-speed Internet access to communities, says Richards, who worked in the Kennebunkport area to bring access there. “This is how it starts,” she says. “At the grassroots level.”

Digital development

With broadband, not only would residential users benefit by being able to send and receive digital photos faster and be able to do online research without twiddling their thumbs but businesses in the county will be able to maximize their potential, Elowitch says. Plus, it doesn’t tie up the phone line.

“In order to intensify the positive economic impact of the Internet on the local economy, we have to make sure that western Maine participates in the technology revaluation on an equal footing with more urban areas.”

Everyone that uses the Internet would see the difference if broadband really came to town, Dwight points out.

“Franklin County has tremendous potential for further economic growth if the right tools are made available,” says Dwight. “We believe that the lack of fast, affordable, industrial-grade Internet access in this area significantly inhibits the growth and undermines the health of business in every sector of the economy.”

Elowitch and Dwight know first hand what it’s like to be stranded with slow Internet access. Both rely heavily on the net for business, and admit that having slow service makes their work less efficient.

For more information, or to become involved in the Rural Broadband Initiative, contact Sam Elowitch at 645-3847 or J. Dwight at 645-9415.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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