Broadband Director: Vermont Forges Its Own Path on Rural Funding

Christine Hallquist was well-qualified to serve as the Executive Director of the Vermont broadband office when Governor Phil Scott appointed her to the position in 2021. Her previous experience included serving as CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative, which deployed a considerable amount of fiber broadband under her tenure, and in 2018, she ran for governor on a platform that included getting fiber to every address in the state. Vermont’s broadband office, known as the Vermont Community Broadband Board, was established by legislation in 2021 that also established the concept of communications union districts (CUDs). CUDs are groups of two or more communities that are self-organized by the communities for the purpose of making high-speed broadband available throughout the CUD. The state directed money that it received from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to a program known as the Broadband Construction Grant Program and allocated funding among the state’s 10 CUDs based on the number of road miles in each CUD. Hallquist says the state will be receiving $229 million in BEAD funding and most of it will go toward fiber broadband. The state plans to define project areas based largely on CUD boundaries. But while only CUDs and unaffiliated towns (partnering with service providers) were eligible for the Broadband Construction Grant Program, the BEAD program will be open to a wider range of applicants, including service providers.