It doesn't matter how we get broadband, but we've got to get it!

The digital divide is a real and vital issue for us in Western Massachusetts - many citizens have no access to even basic broadband service. This puts everyone in our communities - children, seniors, businesses, and institutions - at a severe and growing economic, educational, social and cultural disadvantage compared to people who live in areas with decent broadband coverage. Incumbent telecommunication monopolies have demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to get the job done. Fortunately, various groups are working to build a better network infrastructure which will allow everyone to participate in the emerging digital future. We strongly support all efforts to improve broadband access, and we want to ask all of our friends and neighbors to participate. You CAN make a difference on this one! Since several groups are working on this, and it's a little technical, we wanted to try to sort out what's going on to help avoid confusion on the part of people in the community, and suggest what community members can do to help.

You may have seen the announcement that the towns of Buckland and Shelburne have requested that the joint Cable Advisory Board (CAB) prepare a response to Google's Request For Information of March 10, 2010. Google is preparing to experiment with provision of 1 gigabit Fiber to the Home (FTTH) broadband service to between 50000 and 500000 households, and has requested that interested municipalities respond by March 26, 2010. The CAB is working as fast as possible to prepare a Response for the Select Boards to submit to Google.

Google also provided a questionnaire online that ANY interested person can fill out and submit in support of their towns' initiative. We strongly urge everyone in the community to take the opportunity to speak up on behalf of universal broadband for all, and let Google know that we support their efforts and will gladly work with them on their experiment. Click here for the link.

But DO participate.

We want to stress to you that it is in all of our interests to pursue as many opportunities as there are to get the job done and provide the broadband access that our communities need to survive and thrive in the 21st Century world.