Islesboro builds ‘digital bridge to the mainland’
At their annual town meeting on Saturday, residents of Islesboro voted decisively, 145-23, to become Maine’s first gigabit island.
With the vote, the town will construct and operate a municipally owned internet service to be used by all of the town’s homes and businesses. The $360 per year “connect-everyone-to-a-gigabit” service is a major boon for the island as both a year-round and tourist community.
“We are building a digital bridge to the mainland” said Page Clason, a member of Islesboro’s Broadband Committee, in a prepared statement. “By making gigabit internet available to everyone at an affordable price, we will step to the right side of the digital divide. By building and owning our own network, we control our own destiny. Self-reliance has always been a strong island value.”
The project started three years ago with a report produced by Tilson Technologies of Portland cataloging the problems with Islesboro’s internet access choices and outlining some potential solutions. In 2015, Tilson was retained by the community to design a gigabit network that could serve the entire town. Waveguide of Rochester, N.H., was selected to build the network and GWI of Biddeford will operate the network on behalf of the town, according to a release.
Plans call for the first customers to be connected to the network in the spring of 2017, with all customers connected by the end of the summer.
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