Broadband coming to rural Massachusetts towns

Reported by: Walt McClure
July 26, 2011
Online Video

People in some of the more rural areas of Western and North Central Massachusetts are about to get better access to the Internet.
Gov. Deval Patrick visited the southeast Berkshire County town of Sandsfield Tuesday to talk about what his MassBroadband 123 project will mean there.

Many of us take broadband Internet access for granted, but in Sandisfield, it's a luxury they haven't been able to have – although that's about to change.

Gov.l Patrick says, “At long last the digital divide in Massachusetts is about to close.”

Patrick paid the first visit of his administration to the rural town of just over 800 people to announce the start of construction for MassBroadband 123 - a project to lay more than 1,300 miles of fiber optic cables to bring high-speed broadband internet access to the commonwealth's 123 communities and more than 1,000,000 people that have no access to it now.

“High speed internet isn't a luxury anymore, it's a necessity,” says Patrick. “It's essential to modern education, to medical care, to public safety, to simplifying access to public institutions.”

The project, which includes just over $45 million in money from the Federal stimulus plan and $26 million in matching funds from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will provide direct connections to about 1,400 institutions.

That money is being leveraged through a public/private partnership to provide reliable, affordable broadband.

Sandisfield was once a bustling community of about 3,000 when a Boston to New York stagecoach line ran through there, but the population started dropping once the railroad came in and forced the stagecoaches out of business.

Sandisfield Fire Department Chief Ralph Morrison says this will help immensely responding to calls in the town that is 15 to 18 miles from end to end.

“With this new system, it will pinpoint the exact location of the residence so it makes it easier to find,” says Morrison.

“Living out here it's tough,” says Scott Farrell. “We were so thankful when DSL came in but this is going to jump us so far ahead of that.”

Scott and Melissa Farrell live in neighboring New Marlborough and teach in Great Barrington.

They say this will allow them to do much more for their students and their two young sons.

Farrell says, “The access now is slow and at times you may not get it at all, so having this technology, we can go into our, for a lesson go in, pull something up and have it stream right to us, so there's no delay.”

Once construction gets underway, the hope is to have this all done and online by the middle of 2013.

For more information on MassBroadband 123, go to www.massbroadband.org