How’s Your Speed?

If you’ve struggled with broadband access, you’re not alone. MaineCF forges connections that move Maine forward.

After the past 14 months of Zoom time, we’ve grown accustomed to slow-motion or frozen images and intermittent conversations that reveal where we are on the connectedness spectrum.

In Maine, it’s not hard to spot who has a rural internet location. Sometimes it’s even hard to find one.

At least 83,000 households in Maine don’t have internet access, according to a 2020 estimate from the state’s ConnectMaine Authority (ConnectME). The fix is costly: an estimated $600 million to provide high-speed internet to 95 percent of Maine.

That situation hopefully will change soon, thanks to multipronged efforts across Maine supported by MaineCF and $120 million coming our way in federal Economic Recovery Act funds to expand internet through communities and private providers. Maine also realized more internet funding from the $15 million High Speed Internet Infrastructure Bond that voters approved last July.

“The federal news was sweet indeed after a grueling and heartbreaking year of COVID-19 when our ability to connect virtually was more important than ever,” says Maggie Drummond-Bahl, MaineCF senior program officer. She oversees the community foundation’s Community Broadband Grant Program, launched in 2018 as part of MaineCF’s work to support entrepreneurs and innovators.

“As a community foundation, with a small percentage of discretionary funding available, we initially did not think we could meaningfully support the work of expanding broadband,” says Drummond-Bahl. “If we didn’t have the scale of funding that infrastructure requires and it is really the role of government to invest in infrastructure, what could we contribute?”

The answer was partnerships – what Drummond-Bahl calls the “secret sauce” – to propel Maine toward better high-speed internet service. “We must use the funding we have to support community planning efforts, build the capacity of organizations and coalitions doing field work, be ready for emerging opportunities, and raise our voices to advocate for better connectivity,” she says.

Last year, MaineCF’s Community Broadband Grant Program awarded nearly $118,000 in grants toward broadband efforts and donors contributed an additional $31,000 through their donor-advised funds. This third year of funding supports community working groups and nonprofit organizations, helps increase digital literacy, and aims to ensure more equitable internet access.

Building trust – and partnerships – in an independent, rural, and coastal state like Maine has been critical to meet the needs of different communities. One partnership has the potential to change life dramatically at Passamaquoddy Indian Township Reservation near Calais, which has no high-speed internet service.

More than 150 students at the Tribe’s K-8 school haven’t set foot in school since March 2020 – and spotty cell service meant roughly half couldn’t access virtual instruction through the tablets and hot spots the Tribal school department provided. The poor connection also limited studies on virtual days for Passamaquoddy students who attend off-reservation high school.

The dire situation propelled Education Resource Coordinator Nakia Dana on a mission this spring to find high-speed internet for the Tribe’s 320 households. Dana contacted Drummond-Bahl, who convened and coordinated a partnership between foundations and MaineCF donors to find $315,000 in matching funds that enabled the Tribe to work with a local internet provider. Pioneer Broadband will build the network and provide affordable internet service after approval arrives to string cables on utility poles.

Fund commitments came from MaineCF’s Broadband Initiative Fund, the John T. Gorman Foundation, Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Sandy River Charitable Foundation, the Broadreach Fund, and two MaineCF donors through their donor-advised funds.

“Bridging the digital divide is more than infrastructure,” says Drummond-Bahl. “It’s about ensuring equitable access to high-speed internet for everyone in our communities.” To this end, the project at Indian Township includes summer programming to begin reconnecting kids as well as an affordability fund to ensure that the maximum number of households are connected to the new high-speed service.

Dana’s fast-tracked project got more good news in early June when ConnectME awarded the Tribe over $105,000 toward the community project – one of 20 grants funded through the 2020 broadband bond. The Tribe also has applied to buy into the Downeast Broadband Utility, Maine’s first (and only) municipal internet broadband utility, owned by Calais, Baileyville, and Alexander.

“Broadband is an essential utility at this point in our lives. I know there are other rural places that lack high-speed internet, but it feels like the 1950s when there was access to electricity all around us, but not here on the reservation,” says Dana. “Not only will students have access to educational opportunities from primary grades to graduate studies, but it changes the makeup of our economic development potential.”

Photo: The Town of Lisbon received a Community Broadband grant to create public WiFi “hot spots” that will boost internet connectivity for entrepreneurial, youth, and adult education initiatives. Photo Russ Dillingham PhotoGRAPHICS

Making Connections

MaineCF’s Community Broadband program provided funding to nonprofit organizations and municipalities for a wide range of efforts in 2020, with grants totaling nearly $118,000 and additional awards of more than $31,000 by donors from their donor-advised funds. Several grants in Western Maine were made in collaboration with the Betterment Fund.

Projects since 2018 include:

Maine West Broadband Bootcamp workshops to help communities learn about economic impacts of broadband expansion, mapping of services, financing, and other planning
The Alexander Broadband Project that will help offset costs of providing high-speed internet to residents and joining Downeast Broadband Utility
Opportunity Center of North Franklin County’s plan to run fiber to homes in six of 36 communities
3 Bridged Islands Broadband Company’s work with Georgetown, Arrowsic, and Southport to acquire grants for a fiber-to-home broadband system.