Monthly Subscription Fee Remains Unchanged since 2011
Vermont Business Magazine ECFiber customers on the Basic Plan will see their service speed increase at no additional charge starting October 1st. This is the sixth time ECFiber has increased the Basic Plan speed without a price increase. Originally a $75/month charge for 5 megabits per second in 2011, the speed is now 20x faster and the monthly charge has decreased to $72.
“ECFiber’s primary mission is to bring modern internet to homes and businesses that the cable company never reached and the phone company never modernized. Instead of paying dividends, we lower our customer’s costs,” explained Sharon Trautwein, ECFiber’s Community Engagement Specialist. “Our symmetrical service – upload and download the same speed – makes streaming seamless, makes wifi calling work really well, and makes multiple Zoom calls at the same time a cinch.”
Moving the Basic Plan to 100 megabits per second for both download and upload – symmetrical service – makes ECFiber’s entry-level offering equal to the federal government’s target of 100/100 for new network construction funded through state offices like Vermont’s Community Broadband Board, which has awarded some $17 million in construction grants to ECFiber to build the Fairlees, Bradford, Newbury, Topsham, Corinth, and parts of Washington and Windsor.
ECFiber is the trade name of a community-controlled internet service provider. Community control is exercised by the East Central Vermont Telecommunications District, a special purpose municipality akin to a water district, which is comprised of 31 towns, each of which exercises a single vote on the District Governing Board through one or more appointed delegates. The District has no taxing authority and cannot call upon member town taxpayers for any support; all funding is through revenue bonds, business surplus or grants.
“The District is pleased to reach this milestone and we are looking forward to the introduction of multi-gigabit service in the near future,” said F. X. Flinn, Chair since 2020. “We borrowed $70 million using municipal revenue bonds to build out our original 23 town network and bring world-class broadband to all locations on the grid, and paying that debt probably adds $30 a month to everyone’s bill. Our Basic Plan is now at a speed level the federal government points to as a future standard, and the monthly cost is very close to the least expensive cable package regular price. That’s what happens when you keep pricing flat for more than a decade. Pretty soon we’ll be best in both pricing and technology. Nothing beats fiber-optic based symmetrical service.”
ECFiber serves more than 9,500 residential and business customers on over 1,800 miles of network.
The District contracts with GWI Vermont, LLC, a subsidiary of Great Works Internet of Maine, which operates ISPs in a number of Maine municipalities, to design, build, and operate the business. The District has no employees; its board members and officers serve without compensation.
Source: 10.1.2024. South Royalton VT: ECFiber
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