In Waldoboro, where about 10% of homes are not reached by traditional internet service, voters will decide in June whether to join other local towns in a partnership with a communications company to bring broadband internet service town-wide.
Waldoboro would be joining the towns of Wiscasset, Dresden, and Woolwich, which have been working together to apply for grant programs to build fiber networks since 2021, in partnership with telecommunications company Consolidated Communications.
The towns of Edgecomb, Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport, Whitefield, Waldoboro, and north Nobleboro are also considering joining the partnership at this time, said Broadband Infrastructure Consultant Evan Goodkowsky, representing Coastal Maine Regional Broadband at the Waldoboro Select Board’s Tuesday, April 23 meeting.
For Waldoboro to buy in to this project, the town would need to put forward about $416,000 to cover about $150 per housing unit in town. Lincoln County would provide $100,000 of that from American Rescue Plan Act funding dedicated to broadband projects, bringing Waldoboro’s contribution down to $316,000.
The town would in turn receive a fiber internet network that would be accessible to every household in town. Currently, there are an estimated 276 households in town that are not served by existing cable internet networks, Goodkowsky said. Those homes face fewer options for internet, which they may choose to get from a satellite service like StarLink or simply go without.
Waldoboro Select Board Chair Abden Simmons said the cost was low compared to what the town had seen for previous fiber projects.
Goodkowsky said that Consolidated Communications would fund the rest of the cost by applying to grants and with the company’s own cash flow, assuming that the telecommunications company would gain customers once the network is in place.
“I just wonder whether we’re walking into a trap,” said select board member Michael Thayer, raising concerns about creating a Consolidated monopoly in town by partnering with the company to create the network.
Goodkowsky and select board member Bob Butler argued that the network would instead counteract a low-competition environment that Waldoboro internet customers, many of whom pay around $100 or upwards monthly for internet, already face.
“It’s about competition, and we basically don’t have that right now,” Butler said.
Reuben Mahar, who chaired of the town’s now-disbanded broadband committee, said that he was confident rates would be lower for Waldoboro internet customers once a fiber network introduced competition to the market.
“The headline here, for me, is that you will be giving residents an option, a choice,” Mahar said.
Consolidated Communications is a national company that serves customers in 20 U.S. states.
Resident Rebecca Waddell said that she supported the project, having waited years to get cable internet service at her own home. Now, she said, family members must schedule Zoom calls around one another while working from home.
Fiber internet can support faster connectivity than can fiber, Goodkowsky said.
“It almost goes without saying that, from an economic development point of view, better access and more affordable access to high-speed broadband internet is a boon,” said Conrad Winslow, chair of the Waldoboro Economic Development Committee.
Simmons noted that not everyone in town necessarily wants to be served by internet. Those residents could continue to opt out of internet service as before, Goodkowsky said.
Voters will decide whether to authorize the project with a ballot question at Waldoboro’s upcoming annual town meeting by referendum, which is set for Tuesday, June 11. Possible sources of funding for the project include the town’s fund balance and monies from the town’s tax increment financing district, said Town Manager Julie Keizer at a previous Waldoboro Select Board meeting on April 9.
For more information, call 832-5369 or go to waldoboromaine.org.
