There is a good program on Maine Public Radio discussing the broadband initiative in Maine with Senator King and others. Listen to it here

A message from the Selectboard: 

Unfortunately, there has been a delay in the printing of the 2020 Town Report. A piece of binding equipment that the printing company uses has broken, and the printing of our reports has been held up. 

While we wait for hard copies to be delivered, the Town Report is still available online here for your review. 

The Annual report for the year ending Dec. 31, 2020 can be found here

There will be public hearing via Zoom with the Selectboard on Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 7 p.m. for discussion, questions, and answers regarding articles for vote. A link to the Zoom hearing is shown below. The articles will be available to review prior to the hearing.

Topic: Town Meeting Hearing
Time: Mar 2, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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IMPORTANT NOTICE 

To: The Residents of Vienna 

From: The Board of Selectmen Re: Town Meeting 2021

 Greetings,

 In order to be compliant with the current guidelines regarding COVID safety, we are finding it necessary to conduct our Annual Town Meeting in a different way this year. There will be no in-person meeting on the usual second Saturday of March. Instead, and after consultation with the Maine Municipal Association, things will proceed as follows:

 1. The regular election WILL BE HELD on Friday, March 12, 2021 from noon to 8 p.m. at the Community Room on Kimball Pond Rd. Masking and social distancing will be required. Please wait in your car if it appears that the voting booths are full. We will be voting on elected positions as well as all articles usually enacted at town meeting. 

2. There will be public hearing via Zoom with the Selectboard on Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 7 p.m. for discussion, questions, and answers regarding articles for vote. A link to the Zoom hearing will be made available through both the town newsletter and website. The articles will be available to review prior to the hearing.

 3. Absentee ballots will be available February 10, 2021 from the Town Clerk. Please be patient with us as we navigate through this new situation. 

If you have questions, contact Chris Smith, 860-8574, Jeff Rackliff 491-1621 (evenings), or Laura Church 293-3892

 Sincerely, Town of Vienna Board of Selectmen 

Expanding and Improving Internet Access for residents of Fayette, Leeds, MountVernon, Readfield, Vienna, and Wayne

For almost two (2) years, the WKLCBA has been researching and studying ways to provide the rural communities of Fayette, Leeds, Mount Vernon, Readfield, Wayne, and Vienna with Broadband Internet access for all business, residents, and community members. This effort was supported by Casco Bay Advisors (a technical consultant) and included consultation with a variety of other communities, non-profits, and technical personnel.

In the short term (over the next five to ten years), there are only two internet service technologies which will realistically be able to provide Broadband internet service (as defined by the FCC) to the WKLCBA communities. Specifically, these two technologies are coaxial cable (the existing local cable network is owned and managed by Spectrum, which is a subsidiary of Charter Communications) and fiber to the home (which is not currently offered in the area). It is important to note that next-generation satellite internet service technologies (like Starlink) appear somewhat promising, but as of this writing are not commercially available. Additionally, some residents and businesses may be able to gain service from fixed wireless technologies (like Redzone and cell phone internet) however this will be somewhat opportunistic based upon specific property locations (i.e., line of sight to a tower).

Over the long term, there is only one proven technology that can provide reliable Broadband internet service. This is fiber to the home (FTTH). It is notable that existing coaxial cable networks, wireless networks, and satellite networks all utilize fiber optic cables as the backbone of their network construction. 

Any substantial investments in internet service infrastructure should be focused on FTTH construction and technologies. However, new network construction can be expensive and some minor expansions to the existing cable networks, if possible, can provide some short term benefits. Each community in the WKLCBA may have a somewhat customized approach to their improvement strategy, based upon the current composition of their internet service networks, specifically their current cable coverage. Additionally, economic factors, such as financing, ownership, and availability of grants will be important points to consider. 

Fayette, Leeds, Mount Vernon, Readfield, Wayne and Vienna have cooperatively joined together to form a coalition- the Western Kennebec Lakes Community Broadband Association. The towns created this coalition to extend affordable internet access for all, because internet access is needed to:

• help students get an education
• work from home
• access information and services
• reduce isolation by connecting with family and friends, and accessing health and other supports
• increase employment and encourage business development
• save time and money by replacing older technologies and services.
• and encourage our young people to stay or return to our communities

Internet access will affect the financial and demographic future of our communities by encouraging people to move here. This is an especially important issue in our rapidly aging towns.

In the words of residents of our towns:

• “Internet is a utility like electricity, phone, and roads.”
• “Robust broadband is long overdue for rural Maine. We are increasingly dependent on Internet services for our daily living. As our population ages, health and safety concerns necessitate fast reliable connectivity.”
• “Just like electricity and phones, Internet access is a necessary utility. Everything I do needs an Internet connection.....working from home during the pandemic, tv, news, movies, weather, Telehealth appointments, communicating with family, etc.”
• “Lack of good internet service in [our town] is a major roadblock to growth.”
• “Without internet access at a reliable speed/connection it slows down my ability to work from home and when the kids are going to do remote school work it becomes impossible.”

Our coalition has worked together since February 2019. We have used grant money to map out current internet services, and have met with a range of experts in this field to gather knowledge and explore options, including:

•  Technology Review and Inventory via Casco Bay Advisors Report
•  Vetro FiberMap services
•  Consolidated Communications
•  Spectrum cable
•  A former Time Warner Executive
•  An independent Internet Services Provider
•  Islesboro Community Network
•  Chris Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self Reliance

In addition, we have held virtual community meetings in each town and have surveyed residents through Surveymonkey.

More about our efforts can be found at www.wklcba.org

Each town has appointed people to work together on our coalition. Working with consultant Brian Lippold of Casco Bay Advisors, we have studied our options and have identified three paths to increasing access:

1. Working with existing service providers to extend or improve reliable, high speed service.
2. Working with a new internet service provider to build an area- wide internet network and offer service throughout the towns.
3. Working to build a network owned by the town or towns and operated by an internet service provider.

What we have learned about existing services:
We have learned that we need reliable, affordable, high speed internet service
throughout our towns. Depending on where people live, they may have access to:

• Spectrum cable internet.
• DSL (phone line) internet.
• Cell phone internet or other wireless access.
• Or no internet service at all.

One way to compare these services is to compare the speed of information transfer from and to the internet. Cable has the fastest speeds of existing services; DSL is slower and affected by a household’s distance from the telephone company’s location. For more information about these different technologies, see
https://broadbandnow.com/guides/dsl-vs-cable-vs-fiber
and https://www.wklcba.org/faqs

This graph shows the levels of access to cable broadband internet in our towns:

In surveying residents of our towns, we asked about their satisfaction with their existing Cable  and DSL internet services. This is what we found:

In the words of our residents: 

“We have the ability to work from home- however our lack of high speed connection prevents using it. We have considered moving because of lack of access. … I also lose my connection  regularly “your internet is unstable” and have to reconnect or reboot my modem and there’s a  chance I’ll never get back into the meeting.” 

“It's slow, unreliable, goes out in wind or storms, uploads are too slow if they even work  because of interruptions, bandwidth on ***** Rd is way too narrow. What we have now is  primitive compared to states south of us. And nowhere near what is possible these days. We  need a big upgrade. Soon. With connectivity for all.”

This table summarizes what we have learned about internet service options: