I received a flyer in the mail from Consolidated.com that says they will be offering fiber internet connections in Brattleboro soon. I found a couple stories on iBrattleboro that do not paint Consolidated in the best light and which suggest Consolidated has been offering internet services in Brattleboro already for some time:
Is Consolidated the company that took over Fairpoint’s operations after a bankruptcy? I’m fuzzy on the history here.
Here is Consolidated’s web page about fiber in Brattleboro:
https://www.consolidated.com/residential/internet/vermont/brattleboro-fiber
Last time I looked several weeks ago the page said they were in Phase 3-splicing and now it says they are in Phase 4-Testing and PreOrders. Anyone know anything more about this fiber rollout? They say it will cover “Brattleboro, Dummerston, East Dummerston, Guilford, Marlboro, Putney, Vernon, West Brattleboro and West Dummerston” but the page doesn’t really say exactly where fiber will be available or whether the more rural areas there will be covered. Have they talked to the town about this plan? Are they stringing new fiber? I registered on the web page for updates but only received a “welcome!” email in response; there was no email when they changed from Phase3 to Phase4.
I’ve been trying out Starlink as an alternative to Comcast and have found that the dish seems to only want to use a single line of satellites near our northern horizon, which is partially blocked by tall pines for me, I may have to put the dish on a mast. Maybe as more of the sky is filled with Starlink satellites my coverage will improve (the service is still in Beta), though I find it odd that the dish doesn’t currently try to use the more southern satellites which are more directly overhead. If fiber really was going to be available soon that might be another option to consider.
A bit of info
The trucks and people are out stringing cable, and the Town made an announcement at a Selectboard meeting that the work would be going on in and around town.
Yes, Consolidated took over from Fairpoint. Prior to this fiber rollout they has pretty lousy service… we called once and they had to send a repair person from Rhode Island. They also promised us cable speeds but delivered us 3Mbps. So we cancelled. Went with Vtel. When they were Fairpoint we had an okay but expensive experience (nothing ever broke with our DSL, but it wasn’t cheap).
What are they offering in the mailing? I’d expect 200-1000Mbps up/down for under $100. (Look at VTel in Springfield for comparison). (Vtel also offers a fast cell tower-based internet service, not fiber, that might be a good alternative to satellites.)
plan prices
The plan prices are on the web site:
$55/mo for 50Mbps up and down
$77/mo for 100Mbps up and down
$90/mo for 1Gbps up and down
DVfiber
And now I find out there is yet another local plan to bring fiber, the DVfiber coalition, and Brattleboro is part of it:
https://dvfiber.net/
So it appears Consolidated and DVfiber will be competing to bring fiber here, as well as both of them competing with Comcast and Starlink and cellular internet.