WiredWest Awarded Massachusetts Broadband Institute Grant

The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) announced yesterday that WiredWest will be a recipient of their award program to advance last-mile broadband solutions. This award will be leveraged with in-kind services and additional funding to complete the planning process for the WiredWest fiber-to-the-premise network in its member towns in 2011 and 2012.

According to the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), “grant recipients were selected through an open, rigorous and highly-competitive process.” WiredWest is pleased to have been selected as a recipient, and views this funding as critical to completing a broadband network design and business model that will serve WiredWest communities. Monica Webb, spokesperson for WiredWest, describes the award as “an important contribution towards creating critical, long-lived telecommunications infrastructure in the region.”

WiredWest is a coalition of 47 Charter towns in Western Massachusetts that are unserved or underserved by high-speed internet. As a community organization, WiredWest represents 27,000 households and over 3,000 businesses, and is working to design, build and operate a last-mile, municipal fiber-optic network offering internet, phone and television services to interested residents and businesses.

Under the MBI program, WiredWest was awarded a $50,000 grant, the maximum award amount. The primary tasks WiredWest will fund from the grant include completion of an engineering survey and cost estimates, procurement of vendors and professional services, a market survey, and purchase of mapping information for engineering purposes. In-kind services from regional advocates and organizations will also be utilized to complete these organizational tasks.