VTel Wireless at an event in Hardwick Tuesday launched the commercial version of its high-speed wireless broadband targeted for 24 unserved and underserved rural Vermont towns. It will reach more than 20,000 homes and businesses with broadband signal. The event also officially launched VTel's GigE Active Fiber service to 14 towns and villages in southern Vermont, with 4,000 of VTel's 16,000 homes connected July 1.
VTel Wireless, in conjunction with its partners at Sprint and Ericsson, will showcase several exciting technologies over the course of the day:
- Unprecedented wireless broadband speeds. VTel Wireless recently announced a technology-sharing relationship with Sprint allowing VTel Wireless to offer unprecedented wireless broadband speeds to rural Vermonters. Sprint's wireless technology has the ability to accommodate download speeds, wirelessly, of over 100 megabits per second, using VTel's FCC wireless licenses. "To the best of our knowledge, Hardwick will be the first rural community in North America to see these speeds," said Miss Guité. "We're so pleased that Sprint has agreed to share this important technology with us."
- Voice over LTE calling. VTel expects to offer mobile phone service in late 2014/early 2015, as soon as VoLTE handsets become widely commercially available. Ericsson will be using 2 experimental Sony phones to demonstrate the first rural VoLTE call in America.
- Groundbreaking 4G/LTE wireless applications for agriculture, medicine, education, smart-homes, and more.
- High-definition video-conferencing, which is key to driving success in distance learning.
"We're deeply honored that Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressman Peter Welch, Governor Peter Shumlin, and Rural Utility Services Assistant Administrator Keith Adams will be part of the event," said Diane Guité, Vice President of VTel Wireless said prior to the ribbon cutting.
The VTel Wireless 4G/LTE network is ramping up statewide connectivity for Green Mountain Power's Smart Grid. "Green Mountain Power is building one of the world's first system-wide Smart Grid networks. We're proud to be working with them," said VTel President Michel Guité.
VTel Wireless is the first 100% 4G/LTE carrier in America.
VTel Fiber is also celebrating several recent achievements, and will demonstrate billion-bit-per-second Internet-to-home speeds and high-definition television:
- VTel's fiber-to-the-home project is bringing the fastest Internet in America to over 16,000 homes and businesses in Southern Vermont.
- VTel's pricing for Gigabit Fiber is the lowest in the country.
- VTel's broadband adoption rate for Internet amongst VTel customers with fiber is over 83%, one of the highest in the world.
- Ookla ranks VTel's download speeds #1 in Vermont, at over twice next ranked speed, and over four times the national average, dramatically raising the state average as a whole.
- VTel's state-of-the-art video head-end offers hundreds of channels of video over IPTV - the robust new standard of video delivery.
- VTel offers high-definition voice calling to all VTel telephone customers, at no additional cost.
- VTel's partnership with Google has provided VTel with over 400 Chromebooks to distribute to economically challenged households and first-time Internet users in Vermont.
"Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, Congressman Welch, and Governor Shumlin have all become important national leaders advocating for rural broadband, and I'm pleased we at VTel are able to do our small part to help," said VTel President Michel Guité. "We are so pleased to be a part of Rural Utilities Service's and NTIA's shared vision for bringing broadband to all of rural America."
In 2010, VTel received awards through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, administered by Rural Utilities Service and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to build fiber-to-the-home to 16,000 homes and businesses in its service footprint, wireless broadband to much of rural Vermont, and fiber statewide to serve community anchor institutions like schools and hospitals.
"We are tremendously excited by the prospect of integrating GigE fiber technology pioneered by Google, and 100 Meg wireless technology pioneered by Sprint, to serve rural Vermont homes," said Justin Robinson, Chief Technology Officer for VTel.
Hardwick, Vermont, July 1, 2014 - VTel Wireless