Getting wired: Rural towns offer own high-speed connection – Bill aims to shield municipal service

Getting wired: Rural towns offer own high-speed connection

Until this summer, C. J. Vadnais was one of a dying breed: a computer professional who still depended on dial-up Internet service, a technology that’s quickly becoming as antiquated as a slide rule.

Vadnais, 42, is a computer programmer at Williams College and lives in nearby Stamford, Vt., a village in the Green Mountains far too small to attract a high-speed DSL or cable Internet provider.

”I couldn’t work from home," he said, recalling horse-and-buggy connection speeds with a shudder. ”If you had to send an e-mail that was over 20 kilobytes, you were just sitting there waiting."

So, like many frustrated citizens in small towns across America that lack a connection to the high-speed world, Vadnais persuaded the residents of Stamford, population about 900, to establish their own local broadband network.

With $10,000 in seed money taxpayers approved at Town Meeting last year, Vadnais founded the Southern Vermont Broadband Cooperative to beam a high-speed wireless signal from an antenna on top of the elementary school to homes in the valley.

By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent

Full Story: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/09/18/getting_wired_rural_towns_offer_own_high_speed_connection/