Community Aggregators

The purpose of community aggregation is to gather and prove demand for broadband service in an area not currently served. Below are excerpts from the Vermont Telecommunications Plan v. 4.0 which discuss the topic.

Excerpt from Section 2-23

The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) has been active in advancing the community aggregation concept in Vermont, especially in the Northeast Kingdom. Essentially, the concept involves identifying potential customers for broadband services in unserved or underserved rural communities and then using the identified demand to solicit services from a provider, either informally or through an RFP process. Initial efforts were made in the towns of Brighton, Hardwick, Barton, and Burke that showed both some initial success and some of the difficulty in reaching a critical mass in unserved rural areas. Barton very quickly received an offer from a local ISP to begin offering wireless service. Brighton received good news about plans for Adelphia to offer cable modem service in parts of town. While there was at least some interest in nearly all areas studied, low potential customer density has slowed effort and made it difficult to sustain rapid progress. Recently, VCRD has supported additional planning efforts Waterford, Westfield, Marshfield/Plainfield, and Brandon. In many instances communities are partially serviced, and efforts have turned to focus on the most rural parts of the rural communities which lie out beyond villages and town centers. The VCRD has also established an on-line registry at www.vtruralbroadband.org where Vermonters can go to register their interest in participating in a community broadband project.

The Community Aggregation Process

The following steps are a general model for the community aggregation process encouraged by the Vermont Council on Rural Development. The specific process used varies from community to community.

Identify Community Leadership

Identify a local community-based organization that can take responsibility for any broadband project until the project is completed.

Broadband Service Potential

Determine if any broadband services can be implemented for the town (based on population density, geography, etc.).

Demand Methodology

Determine if the demand for broadband could be quantified without doing a town survey (survey already done, data from other sources i.e. Town Meeting).

Conduct Survey

Conduct a demand survey of residents and businesses, if required (obtain mailing lists, cleanse lists, tailor survey introduction letter(s), mail, tabulate results).

Broadband Demand Report

Prepare and deliver survey results reports to community organization with recommendations for next steps.

Send RFI

Prepare an RFI to be sent by the community organization to potential broadband vendors.

Assist Community Organization

Provide facilitative assistance reviewing RFI responses and in the selection of a preferred broadband vendor.

Market Service

Help the community and the preferred vendor market the broadband service within the service area to get a critical mass of customers.

Excerpt from section 6-4

Simply put, aggregating demand is "building the market." The goal of any aggregation strategy is to create market demand sufficient to attract investment by telecommunications service providers without having t rely on public infrastructure investment. For a telecom provider, an organized demand market creates access to a customer base that represents real value. One Vermont-based service provider recently placed the value of demand aggregation, through marketing savings, at approximately 15-20% of the total cost of a new telecommunications initiative. In addition, the cost savings are comprised largely of up front costs. The ability to demonstrate demand means that obtaining financing, especially in a tight capital market, becomes less daunting. An aggregate can serve as a "market-maker" even in a region short on competitive market choices.

While not a panacea, community aggregation can complement actions called for elsewhere in the plan including loan and grant programs, marketing, and using state purchasing to create incentives or assistance for service providers to bring service to underserved areas. Community aggregation requires significant investments of time by people "on the ground" in local communities, performing the kind of labor-intensive identification of users that can be prohibitively expensive for service providers. State-level organizations such as the Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD), the Vermont Broadband Council, and the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) can add value by coordinating the work that goes on in various communities, providing a road map, professional assistance, and resources about potential users and providers across multiple towns. The state has already provided support for the VCRD's community aggregation effort through the 2003 capital budget. This effort is an excellent foundation on which to build further efforts.

Policy

The state should support community aggregation projects in underserved communities.

Strategies/Action Plans

As state funding opportunities become available, the state should seek to provide sufficient funds through ACCD or another agency to expand aggregation to at least several community aggregation projects in underserved rural communities in the next year of a program in addition to those already underway.
- The Vermont Rural Development Council or a similarly qualified organization should oversee the program and assist local communities organize efforts.
- The program should verify that the money provides significant successful outcomes in the communities through attracting additional new or lower-cost services to those targeted communities.
- If program continues to be successful, the state should fund additional communities in subsequent years until last mile infrastructure goals are met.
- ACCED should help publicize an on-line registry, such as the one maintained by the VCRD, where unserved potential users of broadband and wireless telecommunications services can register their desire to obtain service and their willingness to be contacted.