Carolyn Campbell

A Republican, a Libertarian, and a Democrat meet over a beer in the small town of Liberty, Maine. Bob Kurek, Joe Meadows, and Phil Bloomstein, each a selectman from their respective towns, may disagree on many issues, but they unanimously agree when it comes to broadband funding: Public funds should support publicly owned fiber-optic networks. Kurek, Meadows, and Bloomstein are three of Waldo Broadband Corporation’s (WBC) five volunteer directors.

Susan Corbett, the founder of Maine’s National Digital Equity Center (NDEC), lives in one of America’s most remote rural regions. The population density is under 10 people per square mile. She knows first-hand how fast her community can tumble without a safety net. When the pandemic’s shelter-in-place order went into effect in 2020, Corbett and her team witnessed the severe isolation and loneliness of many elderly people in her community. The Digital Equity Center responded quickly.

Ten years ago, long before the unprecedented amounts of federal funding in rural Internet infrastructure, Roger Heinen watched Islesboro’s population drop precipitously. In 2014, Heinen formed a small volunteer coalition to come up with a solution for the island of under 600 year-round residents. In 2016, voters approved a $3.8 million bond to fund the construction of a fiber-to-the-premises infrastructure capable of speeds of 1 gigabit per second.

Governor Janet Mills (D-ME) has pledged that everyone in the state who wants high-speed internet will be able to get it by the end of 2024. Laying fiber cable to remote regions is the first phase of making good on that promise. Maine’s 2020 Broadband Plan estimated the total cost to build out 17,502 miles of fiber-optic or coax cable to currently unserved areas would be at least $600 million.