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2022 FRS Congressional Broadband Tour Visits Vermont

The group at American Legion Post 19 in Vermont.

Sometimes the best way to understand something is to see it with your own eyes. Knowing this, the Foundation for Rural Service (FRS) hosts an annual trip for Congressional staff members to show them first-hand how broadband is delivered in rural communities and the impact the service has on the local economy, health care, and education systems. These days, that conversation also includes a lot of show-and-tell about the benefits of fiber.

I just returned from this year’s tour where FRS took 11 staff members from the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to Vermont for three days. Having recently gone through all the infrastructure and BEAD funding debates on Capitol Hill, these staffers are well-versed in the policy aspects of broadband but many of them had never held a piece of fiber in their hands, seen a central operations facility, or even been without their cell phone service for an extended time. After this trip, they certainly have a better understanding about the challenges of broadband and appreciation for the role NTCA members have in creating and keeping thriving communities.

Learning how to splice fiber.

We started at Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom where the group learned about the company before rolling up their sleeves to learn the tools of the trade. This included lessons on how to splice fiber and operate various telecom testing and network equipment. 

After learning about how broadband is delivered, we spent the rest of the trip seeing how it’s used in rural Vermont. The group visited the FRS Virtual Living Room at American Legion Post 19, a space for veterans to access telehealth services from the Department of Veterans Affairs. We also saw how the A. Johnson Lumber Co. uses broadband to connect their on-site operations and how it uses online sales to ship logs nationwide and even internationally. The owner of Dakin Farm, a national food retailer, told the staffers of how broadband enabled him to expand the company from a roadside stand to a massive online business, shipping upwards of 7,000 packages during the holidays. “I don’t know where we’d be, we’d certainly not be doing what we’re doing, without broadband,” he told the group. The group also heard from the leaders of some of Vermont’s most popular ski resorts, who told them how they use fiber in all aspects of their business, even producing and monitoring snow production on the slopes remotely! 

Viewing a remote cabinet location.

We concluded the trip with an overview of Vermont’s independent telephone companies and a panel discussion about how the state is using Communications Union Districts (CUDs) and public-private partnerships to expand broadband access across the state. 

Many thanks to Kurt Gruendling, the Board Chair of FRS, and his colleagues at Waitsfield and Champlain Valley Telecom for knowing all the people and places we should visit for a successful trip. I know we all returned home having learned a lot about the needs of Vermont’s rural communities and their broadband providers.

The FRS Congressional Broadband Tour is a unique educational opportunity for Congressional staff made possible by donations from NTCA members. The Foundation was established in 1994 as a non-profit 501(c)(3) by NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association and plays a unique role within the telecommunications industry by supporting rural telecom companies, consumers, and policymakers with educational information, products, and programming.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s tour!

For more information about FRS, visit www.frs.org.