A heat map of where Fidium Fiber installed its new fiber lines in the southwest region of Franklin County.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. IrJ-dichloro-Z-methyl-l-propene
A heat map of where Fidium Fiber installed its new fiber lines in the southwest region of Franklin County.
ST. ALBANS – After spending three months upgrading fiber lines in and around St. Albans, Fidium Fiber is now rolling out faster Internet speeds for the area.
Motorists most likely noticed the installation of the new fiber infrastructure over the last few months as line crews often interrupted traffic flow. But now, the work is largely completed after Fidium Fiber – a subsidiary of Consolidated Communications – finished upgrading lines at roughly 7,000 locations around St. Albans to create faster connections for 9,500 homes in the area.
“St. Albans was one of the places identified as part of our building plan in 2023,” Sarah Davis, Fidium’s vice president of government affairs, said. “Crews have been working since mid-December. Over the next couple weeks, they’ll complete building and rolling out service.”
The new installation helps Vermont meet its broadband goals. The statehouse earmarked millions to bring 100 MB symmetrical download and upload speeds to every resident through the state, relying on regional utility groups, known as communication union districts, to provide the service in places where the market can’t make the revenue work.
Fidium Fiber, however, saw St. Albans as a place where future growth will likely recoup the expense of installing the lines. The Internet service provider used no public dollars to bring a fiber network to St. Albans.
“It’s more dense, by Vermont and Maine standards of density,” Davis said. “It offers that, but also it’s an area that seems to be targeted for growth.”
Residential plans offered by the service range from the slowest download/upload speeds of 50MB to the fastest of up to 2GB, ranging in price from $35 per month to $85 per month.
Such speeds fit within the state’s broadband goals, Northwest Fiberworx director Sean Kio said, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to bring the rest of the county the same service.
As Vermont’s CUDs get up to speed, they’ve faced a few challenges translating state funds into final products. Vermont Auditor Doug Hoffer released a report last week identifying some of the obstacles that the regional bodies face as they pursue the state’s broadband goals.
Many of the report’s concerns centered around the difficulties that come with high costs of construction. But Hoffer also pointed to some tension between the regional CUDs and the Vermont Community Broadband Board – the state’s central board tasked with watching over the use of $350 million of state money.
Basically, the efforts of the VCBB and the districts doing the work aren’t exactly aligned, and Hoffer noted the VCBB don’t always know what the CUDs are doing. Consequently, the regional districts may pursue efforts that don’t always follow best practices, thereby inflating costs and potentially baking inequities into the state’s increasingly expensive broadband system.
“This effort represents one of the largest infrastructure projects in Vermont history,” Hoffer said in a release. “Without the massive infusion of federal funds Vermont has received, we’d be looking at incremental progress, not a universal plan. It is precisely because of the once-in-a-lifetime nature of the level of funding that we can’t afford to make mistakes.”
For those running Franklin County’s CUD, the report came and went without too many surprises. Kio said he knew that Hoffer’s report was coming, and ultimately, he said he appreciated the feedback as Fiberworx pushes forward its broadband buildout.
The CUD that Kio leads, Northwest Fiberworx, started in 2020. The regional district now includes all Franklin and Grand Isle towns, with the exception of St. Albans City.
Fiberworx had been sitting at the bargaining table together with Lamoille County’s CUD for roughly six months to hammer out a deal with Google Fiber to bring a network to the region, but Kio said the effort stopped when Lamoille FiberNet decided to go a different direction.
Ultimately, the deliberations slowed down the expected buildout, but Kio said they’ve since rallied and refocused on creating a more open market for multiple internet service providers. That’s since led to potentially finding an anchor tenant for the larger network, although that contract has yet to be finalized.
The goal is to have the local broadband network in place in three years, and Kio said Fiberworx is on track to wrap up the creation of a central office for the utility as well as its first proof-of-concept project. Once those tasks are completed, he expects the buildout to move much faster.
“We’re in a sense redoing the rural electrification of Vermont but with broadband,” Kio said. “We’re moving proverbial mountains. All Vermonters can benefit from what’s happening.”
And now, Fiberworx has less work to worry about thanks to Fidium Fiber.
While the private ISP invested its own dollars into the St. Albans buildout, Davis said Fidium is also paying close attention to Vermont’s CUDs to see how else the company can fit into the state’s larger goals.
Josh Ellerbrock covers the western side of Franklin County and specializes in state government, politics and community news. Prior to moving to Vermont, he reported from Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and Colorado.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Your comment has been submitted.
There was a problem reporting this.
Thank you for taking part in our commenting section. We want this platform to be a safe and inclusive community where you can freely share ideas and opinions. Comments that are racist, hateful, sexist or attack others won’t be allowed. Just keep it clean. Do these things or you could be banned: • Don’t name-call and attack other commenters. If you’d be in hot water for saying it in public, then don’t say it here. • Don’t spam us. • Don’t attack our journalists. Let’s make this a platform that is educational, enjoyable and insightful. Email questions to bhigdon@orourkemediagroup.com.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
Error! There was an error processing your request.
Receive our newspaper electronically with the e-Edition email. Signup today!
Get a selection of the Messenger's best reporting direct to your inbox each and every morning.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!
St Albans Messenger is a twice-weekly newspaper established in 1861 covering Franklin County, Vermont. Samessenger.com publishes new content daily. Our beat reporters are on the ground covering local government, schools, sports, business and culture.
2-Methyl-2-propen-l-ol Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks. We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: