Neighborly Networks: Vermont’s Approach to Community Broadband

This report highlights how the early collective efforts of residents in east-central Vermont helped make Communications Union Districts (CUDs) a statewide, scalable strategy for ensuring locally driven connectivity today. The report first examines the persistent broadband challenges in the state. Then we outline how Vermont legislators like Sibilia built on the work of the first CUD, ECFiber, founded in 2008, to support the formation of additional CUDs.

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.

There are now ten CUDs across the state. This report provides an overview of how they emerged and their progress to date. Each one has pursued an individual path based on community needs. In addition to profiling the individual CUDs and their progress, we highlight the commonalities in their approaches and the challenges they face in meeting their goals of universal and locally responsive broadband service. As significant federal funds for broadband network deployment become available to states in 2024, including $229 million in funding to Vermont, the CUD model offers crucial lessons about how communities can organize themselves to leverage these funds to meet their broadband needs.