FairPoint outlines Vt. broadband expansion plan

The services will be provided in many rural communities as well as more built up areas by using a combination of wired and wireless service hooked up to a major network that a FairPoint engineer compared to an interstate highway.

"Our goal ... is to significantly increase the broadband coverage across the entire state, not just in the big cities and the areas that we've served for a long time, but the areas that have been underserved," said FairPoint Chief Executive Gene Johnson. "We're working hard to make changes."

In March, FairPoint took over the landline services from Verizon Communications Inc. in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. To win approval for the deal from state regulators in Vermont, the company committed itself to increasing customers' access to broadband that provides high-speed Internet access to computer users.

In the Vermont deal, FairPoint took over 99 telephone exchanges. The 51 exchanges that will see 100 percent coverage within the next two years are located in all 14 counties.

FairPoint officials say similar projects are under way in Maine and New Hampshire.

The system will use a fiber optic core network, traditional services over copper wires and, for users in the most remote areas, by a wireless network called WiMax, which will connect customers to the network via small terminals placed in outlying areas.

Gov. Jim Douglas said the system was critical to the economic growth of Vermont.

"We need to be sure that an entrepreneur who starts a business here or wants to grow one in Vermont can do that with the telecommunications infrastructure that's necessary for success in the 21st century economy," Douglas said. "It's important that that be available, not just in urban areas, but in every corner of the Green Mountain State."

Johnson said that to accomplish its goal, FairPoint engineers were given the go-ahead to search for nontraditional methods of providing broadband access.