Falmouth's Fiber Optic Network One Step Closer To Reality

Rep. Fernandes’s amendment specifies that the money is to be used for “professional services and research expenses.” It funds the next step in a chain of steady progress that began in 2019 with an informal committee convened by Courtney Bird. This committee—inspired by several hundred existing public, community networks in the United States—envisioned a fiber optic network for Falmouth. It inspired a feasibility study funded by Falmouth’s Economic Development and Industrial Corporation, which indicated that if such a network existed, over 60 percent of Falmouth households were likely to sign up. It estimated the cost of the network at about $55 million. The committee incorporated as FalmouthNet, Inc., with a mission “to promote, plan and guide the financing, construction, marketing and operation” of the envisioned network “for the benefit of the citizens of Falmouth.”

Then, in 2020 and 2021, Falmouth Town Meeting, with FalmouthNet’s advocacy, created a municipal light plant, or MLP, following a Massachusetts law that governs how towns provide utility services. This is a direct implementation of Rep. Fernandes’s call to treat internet access “like a public utility.” Falmouth will elect a five-member municipal light board, or MLB, to govern the network at its May 2023 town general election.

Also in 2021, Sen. Moran, with the support of Representatives Fernandes and Vieira, sponsored a state appropriation of $150,000 to create an engineering design. An engineering design is a detailed piece of work much like a blueprint for a house. Using a blueprint, a builder can determine how many sheets of plywood and two-by-sixes the house will need, as well as the number of windows and doors and square feet of roofing. In similar fashion, the network engineering design work specified the sizes and quantities of fiber optic cables to build Falmouth’s network. It showed where the network would be on utility poles and where it should be underground. It showed where the equipment to generate and read the pulses of light that carry the information should go, and where Falmouth’s network should connect to the rest of the internet.

FalmouthNet issued a request for proposals, or RFP, for this work and chose Tilson Technology Management, a Maine-based company with a national footprint and deep experience in building telecommunications networks, to do the engineering design. Tilson engineers spent 46 engineer days surveying over 90 percent of Falmouth’s utility poles. Tilson’s detailed report is available on FalmouthNet’s Website.

The engineering design confirmed the basic cost of the network except for one thing, the cost of financing. Back in 2020, inflation was about 2 percent, and the cost of a 20-year loan was somewhere around $20 million. Today inflation has soared, which means substantially more borrowing costs and a need for a bit of financial creativity.

There’s lots of work to be done between now and the May 2023 election of the municipal light board. Network construction companies—like Tilson and others—are making construction plans in many communities; federal grant money is becoming available; and the supply of basic equipment, like the 470 miles of fiber optic cable the network needs, must be ascertained. The FalmouthNet board is weighing which “professional services and research expenses” to prioritize with the new $100,000 from the state. As these become clear, they’ll be vetted with the Falmouth Select Board. One possible expenditure would be to hire expert help with business planning and financing—if this becomes necessary, FalmouthNet would issue an RFP and choose the most-qualified respondent. Board member Art Gaylord said, “It’s the general consensus of the board to turn over unspent money to the MLB” after the May election. Given FalmouthNet’s progress to date, we can expect that the FalmouthNet will put whatever proportion of Rep. Fernandes’s funding it does spend to good use.