Neighbors Providing Service to Neighbors: Vermont’s Approach to Community Broadband

In 2019, the Vermont Department of Public Service found that nearly a quarter of Vermont addresses lacked service that met the then federal benchmarks for broadband speeds (25/3 megabits per second, or Mbps). The COVID-19 pandemic only underscored the urgent need in a state that has consistently ranked near the bottom of connectivity comparisons over the past decade. Vermonters saw a lack of interest from private providers to invest in the sparsely populated rural state and recognized that communities needed to address the problem themselves. To help communities organize themselves to address their broadband needs, Vermont turned to an existing model in the state: a Communications Union District (CUD). Similar to public utility districts that communities have relied on around the country to build water or electricity infrastructure, CUDs are formal partnerships among multiple towns to build communications infrastructure. Where a single community may struggle to address its broadband needs, CUDs can create larger, more feasible markets and allow towns to share resources and raise funds. They are led by a board composed of volunteer residents from the member towns to ensure responsiveness to community needs. Through these CUDs, Vermonters in 216 of the state’s 252 towns are combining forces to improve broadband access for their communities. It is, as State Representative Laura Sibilia (I–Windham-Bennington) puts it, “neighbors providing service to neighbors.”

[Ry Marcattilio is an associate director for research with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative. Revati Prasad is the vice president of programs at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society overseeing the Institute’s programmatic and research work.]