SANDWICH — This town of 1,300 people lacks high-speed Internet service, so there was a hopeful feeling when Gov. Chris Sununu announced in June a $50 million grant program to bring broadband to rural areas.
But when the governor disclosed the grants recipients last month, those hopes were dashed. Sandwich's project would not move forward.
People trying to work or attend classes from home in Sandwich will have to continue to rely on DSL, which utilizes phone lines, can be unstable and has trouble keeping up with modern demands for video conferencing and document downloads.
“It’s desperate here,” said retired veterinarian Julie Dolan, who chairs a committee seeking broadband coverage for the town. “There is no cable company. We have DSL only and the speeds are very slow.
“Parents are trying to work from home and have their children attend classes from home. It’s next to impossible to have the Internet speed to do those things. Teachers are going to the parking lots of libraries and McDonald’s to use their Wi-Fi. Business people have to find a parking lot.”
Dolan said the failure of the town’s proposal amounts to a “complete snafu.”
She said stringent confidentiality requirements in the state bidding process, time constraints and other complications doomed the project.
“We are very upset about this,” she said.
In February, the town received a bid of $2.5 million from Consolidated Communications to bring broadband service to the area.
The town used this proposal to request a grant from the $50 million state program, which relied on coronavirus relief money from the federal CARES Act.
More people are working and learning from home because of the pandemic and expansion of high speed Internet service has become a priority.
What town leaders in Sandwich didn’t know was that Consolidated Communications applied separately for money to bring broadband to Sandwich.
Dolan said the state had strict confidentiality requirements that prevented it from telling Consolidated about the town’s proposal using the company’s bid. Similarly, Consolidated was not allowed to tell the town it was applying on its own.
“There was a comedy of errors,” she said. “We ended up bidding against each other.
“They put in a proposal higher than ours. The state let us bid against our partner.”
The town withdrew its application when it finally found out about Consolidated’s separate proposal. By then, it was too late to get the project done by the end of the year as required under the CARES Act.
Dolan said time and energy was wasted with separate proposals at a time when every day counted. It could take months to wire an entire town for high speed Internet.
Shannon Sullivan, a spokeswoman for Consolidated Communications, said the company’s only comment on the Sandwich situation was “The Connecting New Hampshire – Emergency Broadband Expansion Program did have strict rules around confidentiality.”
Lisa Cota-Robles, deputy director of the NH Office of Strategic Initiatives, which administered the program, did not return a request for comment made Wednesday.
Of the $50 million the state offered for broadband expansion, it ended up funding $14 million worth of projects for 4,500 potential customers in Bristol, Canaan, Clarksville, Colebrook, Danbury, Deering, Errol, Hinsdale, Hillsborough, Lempster, Loudon, Mason, Nelson, Springfield, Stewartstown, Stoddard, and Washington.
More projects might have gone forward if not for the end-of-year time constraint for getting the work done.
When the program was first announced in June, the anticipated start date for contracts was mid-July, but that time frame slipped.
Sununu didn’t announce the first contract awards until August 6. He disclosed a second set of awards on Aug. 25.
Dolan said she hopes there will be another opportunity for government funding for broadband expansion in the future.
Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, which serves 85 percent of Sandwich, could help.
The cooperative said in a news release that its “Board of Directors proposed changes in the organization’s bylaws that would give it additional flexibility as it explores various options to ensure its members have access to broadband Internet.
“NHEC members will receive ballots in September for a special vote on the proposed amendments.”
An earlier ballot to members attracted just short of the two-thirds vote needed to make bylaw changes.
(1) comment
For what it's worth, DSL is high speed. I have DSL, I use it for work and video streaming, have never had any problems with it. The headlines would lead one to believe that DSL is as slow as dial up, but that's simply not the case.
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