Grafton County, New Hampshire's broadband push faces challenge from incumbent providers

Nik Coates, the town administrator for Bristol (NH), is working on a project that would bring New Hampshire closer to the goal of universal coverage. Coates is also part of the Grafton County Broadband Committee, which applied for $26.2 million in federal funds that would go toward building out broadband in that county. But the grant process – through the National Transportation Infrastructure Agency – is facing a challenge from incumbent providers who say they are already providing service in the region. Residents of those areas say that’s not the reality on the ground. A survey of nearly 2,500 Grafton County residents found that in all of the county’s 39 communities, residents had speeds that were slower than the federal definition of broadband, registering under 25 megabits per second download speed and 3 megabits per second upload. For Coates, the minimum speeds set in the federal definition are insufficient – which is why the project Grafton County is proposing would build out fiber-optic cable. Fiber can provide faster speeds than options like DSL, and it’s considered more reliable than satellite. Fiber is expensive, and in rural areas the population is too sparse to drive private companies – in search of a return on investment – to build. Coates sees this initiative as a collaborative one: The grant would cover construction costs of what’s called middle-mile fiber, but then companies would be able to build out the final mile, reaching residents at their homes. His concern is that the corporations see the project as competition.