Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI)
Seeking to Ensure Broadband Access for Un-served Citizens and Businesses in Western Massachusetts

Call for Solutions

The newly established Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) is issuing a “Call for Solutions,” with the goal of engaging with potential broadband providers in its efforts to ensure access to affordable and robust broadband services for un-served businesses and citizens in western Massachusetts. Responses will identify practical, sustainable solutions that encourage public/private partnerships for addressing the digital divide in the western counties of the state.

© John Fitzpatrick
Governor Deval Patrick signs the Massachusetts Broadband Institute into law.

Established by an act of the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Deval Patrick on August 4th in Goshen, MA, the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) is tasked with meeting the access needs of un-served citizens throughout the Commonwealth. Organized as a division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the MBI will manage a statewide Massachusetts Broadband Incentive Fund, with up to $40 million to incentivize public/private partnerships which result in new broadband deployment solutions. A search for the MBI Director is currently underway: a position charged with the development and implementation of a plan to achieve the MBI’s priorities for the Commonwealth going forward

Daniel O’Connell, Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, described the Call for Solutions as “a public, transparent process to solicit conceptual approaches from private firms related to the provision of ubiquitous broadband access to the citizens of the Commonwealth, particularly western Massachusetts, where the digital divide is most acute.”

According to O’Connell, the emphasis is on public-private models of co-investment in critical broadband infrastructure. The Call for Solutions “seeks responses from potential industry partners at all levels of possible collaboration,” he said.

Rep. Daniel Bosley, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, said, “There is great enthusiasm for expanding broadband access to the un-served citizens of the Commonwealth. Access to affordable broadband services is a critical dimension of 21st century economic development—it provides a level playing field for students, residents and businesses in Massachusetts by opening the door to an enormous amount of information and resources.

“It is vital for us, as state leaders,” Bosley said, “to make this happen as soon as we possibly can.”

Towards that end, Berkshire Connect, Pioneer Valley Connect, and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative have been laying the groundwork for the state to achieve affordable, robust broadband access throughout the western Massachusetts region.

Underlying these efforts is the Patrick-Murray Administration's desire to bring access to affordable broadband connectivity to all municipal governments in Massachusetts; a goal that will become a cornerstone for measuring the progress of MBI in western Massachusetts.

On the federal level, the U.S. Senate recently passed the Broadband Data Improvement Act, a bill that will promote enhanced broadband mapping and enable policymakers to better identify areas of the country that are falling behind when it comes to high-speed Internet access.

Hit the Ground Running

The Call for Solutions is a stepping stone initiative that will inform the work of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute going forward. Once fully established, the MBI will organize a request for proposals, as well as secure bond proceeds from the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.

“This Call for Solutions is intended to drive forward the discovery on who can do what, and what is feasible,” said Don Dubendorf, Governing Board Chair of the MTC’s John Adams Innovation Institute and ex-officio member of the MBI Board of Directors. “This process is designed to stimulate action and dialogue between government and the private sector. The MBI will carry the process forward in western Massachusetts and then elsewhere in the Commonwealth,” he said.

MBI’s challenge, according to Sharon Gillett, Commissioner of the Department of Telecommunications and Cable, will be to engage industry so as to inform both the procurement process and the selection process in order to create a successful plan for moving ahead with infrastructure investments in western Massachusetts.

The process, Gillett said, will enable “broadband service providers and other stakeholders to articulate practical, sustainable solutions that can achieve affordable, robust, broadband access throughout the western Massachusetts region.”

The Challenges Ahead

Given the differences in topography in the region, there is no “one size fits all” solution, according to George ‘Chip’ Brodeur, the chief technical officer for both Pioneer Valley and Berkshire Connects.

The beta tests of wireless technology in Worthington, New Salem, and Florida have provided important feedback in efforts to validate the use of wireless access points, Brodeur said.

The question these networks attempted to answer was whether a wireless network could be established as a cost-effective means to share the cost of a T-1, re-establishing broadband access to all the town halls, with communal wireless hot spots.

These towns had previously had broadband access through the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which had funded T-1 lines. When funding ran out, the towns were limited to dial-up.

Under the beta test model, the businesses and residents connected to this fledging “network” could potentially, if they chose to, share the costs of continuing a T-1 connection, which runs about $600-$800 a month.

The experiences in each community have been varied. In Florida, where the wireless technology is situated at both the local school and at one of the highest points in Massachusetts, there are about 30 participants in the network. In Worthington, there have been about 15-20 active participants; the curving rural roads have proven to be difficult topographical feature to overcome.

There are two messages to take home from the wireless beta tests, according to Maggie Bergin, who has served as project manager.

“Wireless has to be done on a house-to-house basis in western Massachusetts,” she said. “The location of the receiver is going to change the results. Going around the corner matters,” Bergin said, which means that the process has sometimes been frustrating for residents.

The second message, says Bergin, “is that people in western Massachusetts are desperate for broadband. This teeny, tiny program doesn’t quench a drop of the thirst that exists for access to broadband services.”

The experience with these WiFi tests have demonstrated that the application of WiFi technology by itself would be an insufficient response to the lack of broadband in western Massachusetts.

An Excellent First Step

Brodeur called the Call for Solutions “an excellent first step. It clarifies and eliminates any rumor and innuendo about the process. The Call for Solutions will do a very good job of initially identifying a pool of qualified responders.”

According to the newly enacted Broadband Act, the state will not be a network service provider. Instead, Brodeur said, “the state will provide the backbone infrastructure, investing in hard assets.”

The Massachusetts Broadband Institute’s Call for Solutions “adds a sense of reality that is very exciting. We’ve been working on this for years, and it almost seems tangible,” said Brodeur.