Six people attended the Broadband meeting on June 13, 2007. 

Andy West explained the progress of DSL and the Whitney Hall T1 line.  DSL has expanded up Athol Road and along Route 32.  It works in these areas because they are the closest areas to Athol, where our phone signals originate.  Normally, a DSL signal can travel only 3 miles from its point of origin.  Because of heavier gauge cable used for maintenance over the years, it has been able to travel 5 miles and more.  Verizon is testing house by house to see how far it will go.  Many people along this route have signed up for DSL.  Andy pointed out that the number of new customers may make a town-wide solution more attractive to Verizon.  He will continue to work this with Verizon.    DSL is a high-speed solution that provides an internet connection along existing phone wires.

The T1 hardware is installed at Whitney Hall.  It still needs to be configured.  Andy West and Jon Hardie will be wiring the building to network the computers together.  After the network is up and running. They will install and test wireless capability to the South Royalston area.  An antenna placed high up outside Whitney Hall may allow nearby residents to get internet service by using a wireless receiver.  More to follow on this testing.

Jon Hardie spoke about long and short-term solutions.  Long term solutions include wiring the town with a core ring of high speed fiber optic and broadcasting a wireless signal through many small towers.  A company in Western Mass does this type of small town wiring.  Andy will ask this company to a Selectboard meeting to get more details.  Questions were raised about where funding would come from.

Short-term solutions include DSL, wireless from Whitney, and cell phone broadband.  Cell broadband is a wireless technology (different than the wireless from Whitney) that allows a broadband connection through a cell phone-like device with connection plans provided by a cell phone carrier (Verizon, Cingular, etc.).  Since many people in Royalston can only get cell phone service “on the back porch,” signal boosting antennas can be used to bring the signal indoors.  Capability would be very location specific.  Tests done by the police department for an in-cruiser terminal show encouraging results in most areas of town.

Fred Charest asked why the cable company can’t extend the cable already in Phillipston to South Royalston.  Andy West stated that his understanding was that state law requires cable tv providers to provide service to a whole town if it does one house.  Andy will check to see if there are any exceptions in that law.

Minutes recorded by Andy West