VTel doing broadband survey of Wallingford users

An engineering firm hired by Springfield-based Vermont Telephone Co. has been visiting homes and businesses in Wallingford in an effort to collect information as part of VTel’s plans to upgrade broadband services.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110222/NEWS01/702229906

Published February 22, 2011 in the Rutland Herald

VTel doing broadband survey of Wallingford users

By SANDI SWITZER
Correspondent

WALLINGFORD — A door-to-door campaign is under way in town and it has nothing to do with the upcoming elections.

An engineering firm hired by Springfield-based Vermont Telephone Co. has been visiting homes and businesses in an effort to collect information as part of VTel’s plans to upgrade broadband services.

A Minnesota firm, FEC Engineers, will be conducting initial engineering work in Wallingford and 13 other towns across southern Vermont over the next three months.

“The engineers are going door-to-door to every single one of our customers to basically confirm they are customers and verify information,” explained Tess Gauthier, VTel’s community broadband team director. “The purpose is to understand what equipment is needed to do drops at each home to make upgrades happen.”

VTel received an $81 million broadband federal stimulus grant and a $35 million government backed loan for a three-part project — dubbed Wireless Open World — to expand broadband access, strengthen the connection VTel customers in 14 towns have with a one-gigabit fiber-optic network, and to conduct a series of public forums aimed at educating residents statewide about broadband.

Once the engineering firm collects the data, the planning phase will ensue, with engineers revisiting towns to conduct land surveys, according to Gauthier. The WOW project began in late 2010 and is expected to be completed in 2013.

“The end result will mean the folks in Wallingford would be upgraded to the active fiber to the home connection,” Gauthier said. “It’s a billion bits of over-active fiber, so it’s extraordinarily robust and fast. It’s one of the most state-of-the-art ways to bring broadband to the end user.”

The work being conducted as part of the WOW project will affect every VTEL customer in town. “If they are a VTel customer, they will be contacted,” she added.

Other nearby communities involved in the upgrade include Mount Holly, Danby, Pawlet and Shrewsbury.