Dennis Roland with his new Starlink satellite internet dish When Dennis Roland retired to the hills outside Waterbury in 2014, he knew part of the price of a slower pace of life would be slower internet service. He
didn t know it would practically cost him his sanity. As a chemist at a New Jersey pharmaceutical company, Roland had been used to collaborating with colleagues around the world using lightning-fast internet services. But from his new home at the end of an unpaved road in the Worcester Range, Roland s connection was agonizingly slow when he had it at all. It would go out for a couple weeks at a time, which drove me nuts! Roland exclaimed.
Sun, 12/20/2020 - 2:11pm tim
Bruce Edwards, Vermont Business Magazine It’s the most rural area of the state and when it comes to high-speed Internet, the Northeast Kingdom is also the most underserved area of the state.
So, in April residents decided to take matters into their collective hands and formed Northeast Kingdom Community Broadband – what is now a 32-town communications union district or CUD.
Evan Carlson, chairman of NEK Community Broadband, said 49 percent of the addresses in the three-county region have Internet access below 25 megabytes per second – a far cry from what’s considered high-speed Internet or broadband.