MA Governor to Sign $40M Broadband Bill Aimed at Spurring Investment

At 10 a.m. this morning, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is scheduled to sign state-wide broadband legislation at the town hall of Goshen, about 12 miles northwest of Northhampton and in the Berkeshire Mountains. The law creates a $40 million Massachusetts broadband incentive fund, allowing the state to issue 30-year bonds to help bring broadband to unserved communities like Goshen. The funds will be administered by a quasi-public agency, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, which has been studying broadband in Massachusetts. Goshen is one of the 32 town in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - out of a total of 351 towns and cities - that have no commercial broadband providers, according to Sharon Gillett, Commissioner of the Department of Telecommunications and Cable. The 32 towns - all of which are in the western portion of Massachusetts, are "the one that we have defined as having no consumer-level provision of service," Gillett said in an interview. Gillett said that state defined "unserved" as meaning that they had no access to fiber-optic, cable modem, or digital subscriber line (DSL) service. The bill, which passed the Massachusetts House on June 30, cleared the Senate in July. Initially composed of $25 million, the House added $15 million to bill in an effort to allow underserved communities to tap into the funding. Once signed into legislation, the technology collaborative will have the authority to tap into the fund, and "issue requests to the private sector, to anyone who wants to co-invest with the commonwealth, in servicing" these areas, said Gillett. "The governor's initiative was always intended to stimulate private investment."