Some rural areas in Berkshire County are getting broadband sooner than others...

In this day and age, it's a sad fact that small towns and rural communities have to fight to get a decent Internet connection. Berkshire County in western Massachusetts is a perfect example of this debacle. Here we are, in the most technologically advanced country in the world, halfway between New York and Boston, relying on slow dial up or weather dependent satellite service simply to remain in contact with the outside world.

We all owe Governor Deval Patrick many thanks for his broadband initiatives. To my knowledge, no other high-ranking state representative in the history of Massachusetts has shown nearly as much concern for rural Internet needs. His focus on this issue has jump- started Berkshire Connect (and Pioneer Valley Connect in the Route 91 corridor); state-level plans focused on delivering affordable broadband to under-served and unserved rural communities. The overwhelming problem with state-level plans is timing. The broadband grants that the Governor has proposed are still on the chalkboard, and may not even become reality until 2010 or beyond, depending on state budgeting of course.

Limited Internet Connections

Most rural towns are limited to two or three types of Internet connections...

Dial up is an unsatisfactory alternative, but in many places the only one available. Most people average 19 to 28 Kbps connections, because the quality of the Verizon telephone lines in rural areas. After heavy rainstorms for example, phone service degrades or fails completely. This poses a safety risk, especially to the elderly and the families in the community. Scratchy, unreliable phone lines do not provide a good basis for clean dial up connections, and Verizon has made it clear that upgrades to DSL service are unlikely in rural, low population density areas.

Satellite Internet service, a so-called alternative, involves having another dish antenna installed on your property, and it often suffers from weather outages and very high data packet latencies, which results in very slow service or no service at all. To compare, dial up data packet latencies often vary around 150 to 250 ms delays, whereas satellite data packet latencies are 750 to 2000 ms, giving users the "click and wait" syndrome. Despite its high speed, satellite Internet is not worth its high monthly costs, because of its overall slow response and its weather dependencies. Also, you need to have a clear view of the southwestern sky in order to get any service at all. This entirely depends on the home owner's location. Many people have hills, mountains, or thick forest obstructing their view of the southwestern sky. Though satellite offers speeds up to 1.5 Mbps, you really only reach such speeds when downloading very large files, and not so much while viewing websites. In fact, SSL secured commerce sites often respond much slower over satellite than over dial up.

I can tell you personally that after being a satellite Internet customer for about four years, it was a lukewarm experience. I had to pay for a business-class connection to get any real work done in my small business. Also, when I originally signed up, the company's tech support staff all spoke American English. But after internal changes, and the off-shoring of their support operation, broken English tech support became the norm. I recently canceled the service and fell back to old "reliable" dial up.

The third service, T-1 or "trunk line" as it is called by the phone company, is priced way out of the market for most homeowners. Even the most deeply discounted fractional T-1 service costs at least $250 per month, which does not include installation. T-1's are intended more for medium to large businesses, town government, schools and colleges.

A Community Joining Forces

One town left disconnected in Berkshire County is Alford, MA. In November 2006, a group of concerned citizens in the town of Alford banded together to create the Alford Broadband Committee. They are not an official part of the town's government, but are a group of people who have dedicated their own time and expertise in a variety of areas, to get the ball rolling for broadband in the small town of Alford. It was disturbing when the committee discovered that some residents had actually left town or had decided not to move into Alford due to its lack of communications services. Not only does Alford lack broadband alternatives such as Verizon DSL or FiOS, it also has no cable service, and most people rely on satellite for television. For all intents and purposes, Verizon telephone and Time Warner Cable refuse to provide any forms of broadband Internet to the town of Alford simply because it's not in their "financial best interest". These two corporate giants prefer to pretend that the town does not exist, rather than to make an investment into the town's communications infrastructure.

The "Spring" Into Action

Frustrated by the lack of responsiveness by the corporate communications giants, the Alford Broadband Committee discovered a newly developed, locally-grown Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) called WiSpring, based in neighboring Great Barrington.  WiSpring provides a broadband wireless connection, beamed from the top of the Catamount Ski Area, which broadcasts over the southern Berkshire Hills. Many people in Egremont and Great Barrington were already getting wireless Internet service from WiSpring.

The Alford Broadband Committee worked very closely with WiSpring and town officials to come up with a game plan and after a town meeting on the issue, several residents came forward to offer the use of their high-elevation properties for placement of repeating towers so WiSpring's signal could be broadcast throughout Alford valley. The first tower was erected in Q4 of 2007, providing service to southern parts of Alford, and a second tower is expected to go live in early 2008, which will is expected to provide 80% or more of Alford's residents with wireless service.

Unlike satellite, WiSpring's service is earth-based instead of sky-based. WiSpring operates similarly to what we know as "wi-fi" used in many small networks and public hot spots. However, WISP broadcasts for a number of miles on various frequencies, whereas "wi-fi" broadcasts only a few hundred feet even with the strongest routers.

The two main advantages of WiSpring over satellite is that WiSpring is not weather dependent, and does not suffer from long data packet latencies. In comparison to satellite's 750 to 2000 ms packet delays, WiSpring's packets are often delivered at less than 150 ms, which is similar to the packet throughout of a Cable Internet connection. The main possible interference to WiSpring's service is foliage, which is why they perform most of their installations from mid-spring to mid-autumn, when foliage is at its thickest. Other than foliage, as long as there are no mountains between your home and a WiSpring tower, you should get signal.

Satisfied Customers

Several of my customers are currently using the WiSpring service, and have been quite satisfied. Many people have forsaken their satellite connections to jump onto WiSpring's service. Following are some quotes from satisfied customers...

"I wanted to let you know that this past Saturday I had WiSpring installed at my house. The whole process went very smoothly. The antenna is a lot smaller than I expected, and the installer did a great job of hiding the wire behind the gutter and under the trim. The performance is outstanding, much faster than the HughesNet satellite dish that I've had for a few years. Before switching, I wrote down how long it took to load certain pages, and my WiSpring is between 4 and 10 times faster than my HughesNet connection."

"We just got WiSpring installed this afternoon. Have you gotten it yet? Just incredible!!! Can't really believe it! The connection is even faster than what you can get downtown in Great Barrington at the coffee shop on Main Street! We did a speed test with the installer and it's actually twice as fast on the upload than the fastest DSL package from Verizon! Literally a Godsend!!!"

In Summary

Any rural town that is interested in getting broadband service should consider joining together to create a broadband committee of concerned citizens. Only with the power of numbers can a town's voice become amplified enough for broadband service providers to hear it. Assembling a committee and cutting through all of the legal red tape can be quite an effort. However, the small town of Alford was able to make great headway on their own within one year, other rural towns can do the same. If you reside in western Massachusetts, you can keep tabs on what is happening at the state level with rural broadband at Berkshire Connect. If you're a resident of Alford, MA you can check out the Alford Broadband Committee for more information. If you reside in southwestern Massachusetts, you may want to find out more about WiSpring.