Millions in rural America lack reliable internet. How Massachusetts towns got online.

Otis, Massachusetts, isn’t the sort of place you expect to spend a lot of time online. A few two-lane mountain roads snake through dense woods and around placid ponds. Quaint houses peek out from the thickets. Main Road is dotted by a few small businesses, a modest town hall, and a diner or two. It’s the sort of place you might go to escape the hustle and bustle.

For Kirsten Paulson, who lives part time in Otis, that’s all a selling point. Another major one: Her internet service is better here than at her home outside Washington, D.C.

That’s because the town of 1,500 people built its own network to fill in the gaps left by private providers, which don’t offer high-speed internet in Otis. Now, after decades of slow and unreliable service, nearly every house in town is connected to a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network.

Versions of that story repeat themselves across western Massachusetts, where dozens of rural communities have used state, federal, and municipal funds to get their residents online. Some, like Otis, have built their own networks, treating internet access like a public utility. Others, like neighboring Sandisfield, have formed public-private partnerships to entice companies to provide service. 

The Massachusetts Broadband Institute, a state agency tasked with making affordable internet widely available, says that 99% of the commonwealth now has high-speed internet. 

It’s a success story that is already pointing a way forward for rural municipalities nationwide. Last week, Maine announced it would offer free Starlink dishes to about 9,000 residents living in the state’s most remote areas who currently have no access to reliable broadband. The technology from SpaceX works by delivering internet service via satellites rather than ground-based cables or cell towers, making it well-suited for users in rural and remote areas.

The Federal Communications Commission estimated that in 2019, some 17% of Americans living in rural areas lacked high-speed internet, compared with 1% in urban areas. Other studies estimate that as much as 50% of rural America doesn’t have access. 

Reliable broadband, or high-speed internet that’s always on, brings benefits beyond streaming the latest Netflix hit or conveniently filing taxes. It can generate economic growth, boost school performance, and improve emergency services.

“It touches upon all of these elements,” says Christopher Ali, a professor of telecommunications at Penn State. “Everything from economic prosperity to housing value to ‘What am I going to binge on a Friday night?’ It connects everything.” 

Why so much of rural America lacks internet

Cost is a major pain point. Americans pay more on average for broadband than residents in other developed nations. Dr. Ali also points to the country’s dependence on the private market. In areas with low population density, it can be hard for a private company to turn a profit. 

Before fiber was widely available, residents of both towns were limited to using internet transmitted via copper telephone wires – commonly known as digital subscriber lines, or DSL – and satellites. Neither option offers much speed or reliability, residents say. You could use a phone to access the internet, but “smartphones are not replacements for a broadband connection,” Dr. Ali says. “There are just things you can’t do.” 

When the pandemic shuttered schools and moved learning online, Sandisfield parents parked outside the local public library so their kids could use the building’s Wi-Fi to do schoolwork from the car. “It was a little bit of a heartbreak to watch what was going on with kids that were trying to work remotely,” says Craig Storms, a Sandisfield resident. 

But there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to such a complex problem, says Michael Baldino, director of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute. Different communities have different needs. 

Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in Otis and Sandisfield. Though local grassroots efforts drove both projects, they took vastly different approaches to solving their connectivity problems. 

Otis opted to build and operate its own network. That model lets the community decide how the network runs. Because the town doesn’t seek to profit, municipal networks can often set lower prices than private providers. Any excess money the network makes can be funneled back into the community.

The idea wasn’t new. Glasgow, Kentucky, became the first municipality in the United States to build a network in 1989. In Massachusetts, the city of Westfield had already taken the plunge.

That precedent proved invaluable. Eventually, Whip City Fiber, the subsidiary Westfield created to operate its network, built Otis’s system. While Otis owns the network, Whip City Fiber provides the internet access and maintains the infrastructure. It’s a mutually beneficial deal: Otis gets connected, and Westfield gets paid for its services. 

For Tom Flaherty, general manager of Whip City Fiber, the partnership was about more than just good business sense. 

“We weren’t looking at it from the point of view of starting a business. We were looking at it from the point of view of really helping one of our neighbors,” he says. “For a municipal utility, that’s what we do, right? We strive to help our community.” 

High-speed internet: from luxury to necessity

The project has been enormous for Otis, where residents’ enthusiasm underscores broadband’s impact on rural communities. “It’s been one of the best things that’s ever happened,” says Larry Gould, who worked on the project. 

The new network has attracted homebuyers like Hilary Harley, who says she moved to Otis partly because of its strong internet. It has also meant existing residents have an easier time building community and feeling more connected to the broader world.

“It lets us be connected here, where really before you were kind of remote,” Mrs. Paulson says, emphasizing the benefits for school-age children and their parents as well. “It’s made community-organizing things better.” 

But it wasn’t a cheap undertaking. Otis financed the plan with a nearly $4 million municipal bond and a $1.8 million state grant. Such grant funding is a major driver of broadband expansion in the Bay State. An influx of federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has also been instrumental.

But Sandisfield wasn’t able to finance its own network, says Jeff Bye, a retired rocket scientist who chaired the town’s broadband committee. Instead, the town partnered with Charter Communications, one of the nation’s biggest broadband providers. With state funding to offset construction costs, the company agreed to build a fiber-optic network to connect the town.

Unlike Otis, Sandisfield doesn’t reap the benefits of owning its internet infrastructure. But there are benefits to having a major telecommunications company manage the network, Mr. Bye says.

“[Charter has] the people who know how to design something like that, how to build something like that, how to operate it, maintain it,” he says. 

Since the network was installed, Sandisfield has seen an influx in the number of people applying to build and buy homes, says Steven Seddon Sr., chair of the town’s Select Board. It also recently installed CodeRED, an internet-based public safety program. 

For Stewart Goossens, who works from Sandisfield when he visits his parents, the new network means he spends less time struggling to get a stable connection – and more time in the community he cherishes. “It allows me to really live my life and be with the people I want to be with,” he says.

The projects haven’t been entirely successful, however. In Otis, Mr. Gould says there are still pockets where people aren’t serviced. A few houses in Sandisfield can’t access the new network because of contractual issues, according to one resident. Although both towns’ prices are lower than many private market rates, some residents say the cost is still steep.

Still, the fiber networks have been a boon for both communities, who no longer lack what many consider to be a service as essential as running water or electricity. “[Broadband] is not a luxury,” Mr. Bye says. “It’s a necessity.”