NORTH HAVERHILL — A group of municipal managers is asking Grafton County residents about their internet service, or lack thereof, as it explores ways to expand broadband across the county.
The Grafton County Broadband Committee, made up of the leaders of four rural towns, hopes to use information collected as part of a new survey to identify and document existing gaps in coverage.
It then plans to leverage that knowledge into federal grants, stimulus dollars and possibly part of President Joe Biden’s proposed $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
The ultimate goal is to build or contract for “broadband backbone,” or fiber-optic lines that service providers could use to build out coverage into Grafton County’s communities, according to Bristol, N.H., town manager Nik Coates, who chairs the broadband committee.
Coates compared backbones to major highways that carry internet, which could then be funneled onto smaller roadways to people’s homes and businesses.
“We’ve been working very hard and quickly to get a project up and running,” Coates said in an interview earlier this week. “We’re trying to put ourselves in the best position possible to access grant dollars and appropriations.”
Also participating are municipal leaders from Canaan, Haverhill and Campton.
The idea of a countywide broadband committee came after Bristol — a town of nearly 3,100 — used $1.52 million in CARES Act money to construct a 24-mile fiber route that connected about 400 residents to the NetworkNH System at Plymouth State University.
The town also is using a $260,000 grant to expand that network and eventually create a broadband corridor along Interstate 93.
Coates said the county committee was born in September out of talks to take Bristol’s model and expand it to a larger population. Utilizing county government, he said, is less cumbersome than forming a communications district — like the one that led to ECFiber in Vermont — because it doesn’t require buy-in from individual communities at Town Meeting.
“All of a sudden there’s become a lot of money available and potentially a lot more money available for broadband,” Coates said, adding the committee is working to have a proposal for grant funding ready in May.
While New Hampshire received $50 million from the federal CARES Act to expand access to broadband, few communities made use of those funds because, under the law, projects had to be completed by Dec 15.
However, officials are more optimistic about the newest round of stimulus approved by Congress in December.
The American Rescue Plan sets aside about $194 million for New Hampshire cities and towns, which can be used to expand broadband. Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Legislature is debating a bill that would provide matching grants for broadband build-out.
On the other side of the Connecticut River, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has proposed a $225 million investment in broadband infrastructure, partly using the state’s share of $1 billion in federal aid.
The lack of reliable broadband — defined as a minimum of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds — has long vexed New England’s rural communities including parts of the Upper Valley.
A 2014 survey of the region found “substantial gaps in coverage,” with parts of Newbury, Grafton, Dorchester, Orford, Piermont, Grantham and Croydon listed as “underserved.”
“Above and beyond the general mapping of broadband availability, residents have reported gaps in service in nearly all towns of the region,” said the regional broadband plan drafted by the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission.
The plan goes on to say that the region’s low population density deters private investment, while the Upper Valley’s hilly terrain presents physical barriers to a broadband build-out.
It also faults state leadership for doing too little to plan and finance higher internet speeds.
Even communities with multiple providers have some areas that either have to rely on dial-up service or go without internet, said Canaan Town Administrator Mike Samson.
Comcast and Consolidated Communications both offer service in Canaan but they don’t “cover the whole town by any stretch of the imagination,” said Samson, who also sits on the county broadband group.
“In the vernacular of the industry, we are really concerned about building out the last mile,” he said. “In other words, we want to ensure that every household in Canaan has the capacity for broadband.”
Samson said he’s optimistic that the Grafton County group can become a resource for communities looking to expand internet services on their own, as well as prepare plans to build more broadband backbone.
“We would like to use the clout of the county, if you will, to make sure that there’s backbone accessible at least at the door of every single community in the county,” he said. “That means that somewhere in every town there is a hub or a line that they can connect to.”
A link to the broadband committee’s study can be found at https://forms.gle/FvKkZA4xtKZAoE8t5.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.