Vermont Telephone Company (VTel) is breaking ground on its hybrid 4G LTE wireless and wireline Fiber to the Home (FTTH)-based plan to extend broadband services to its rural customers in Vermont.
Set to extend 1 Gbps speed services to over 15,000 customers throughout the southern Vermont service area by 2012, the new project is made possible through $129 million in broadband stimulus grants via the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA).
To make 1 Gbps to the home service possible, the service provider is putting optical network terminals (ONT) at subscriber premises with point-to-point GigE technologies to serve as the connection point for its Wireless Open World (WOW) network.
When the project, which got underway in September, is completed in 2013, VTel said it “will extend 4G/LTE wireless broadband to every unserved Vermont community, and … extend its fiber to 200 community anchors in three states.”
Broadband access is only one part of the overall program. The service provider plans to deliver digital literacy training through a number of Rural Broadband Farm Forums, which were patterned on the Rural Radio Farm Forum used successfully in rural America in the 1940s to help create jobs and share community ideas.