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Boston
Globe
February 4, 2000
BERKSHIRES GROUP LANDS PACT FOR HIGH-SPEED NET ACCESS
By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff
BerkshireCounty's long quest to get on the information superhighway
is taking a big leap forward today, with the announcement that
Global Crossing Ltd. and a new Woburn carrier have been picked
to wire up the county for broadband-speed Internet access.
Members of Berkshire Connect, a group of businesses and government
agencies that have lobbied for three years for better Net access,
will within four months be able to get high-speed access at
barely a third of the current cost. Widely
expected to be a national model for improving broadband access
in underserved areas, the Berkshire Connect contract represents
a successful gambit by local firms that essentially gave telecommunications
giants an ultimatum: Bring us fast Net access, or we will do
it ourselves and shut you out of what we have proven can be
a lucrative market. "I couldn't be more excited about this and
what it means for the economic future of the county," said Donald
Dubendorf, a Williamstown attorney and chairman of the steering
committee organizing the project. "We are going to be competitive
with Boston" in competing for businesses that demand high-speed,
low-cost Net access.
Global Crossing and start-up Equal Access Networks Inc. of Woburn
have agreed to invest several million dollars building a broadband
network throughout Berkshire County, including leased fiber-optic
loops, high-speed fixed-wireless connections, and digital subscriber
line access over existing copper phone lines.
The network is expected to cut by up to 70 percent the current
average of $1,500 a month that most businesses pay to get high-speed
access to Net connections in Springfield, by pushing those links
much closer to Pittsfield, North Adams, Great Barrington, Williamstown,
and other Berkshire communities.
Even before Berkshire Connect, the Williamstown-North Adams
area had already become a hotbed of Net companies, including
two units of Waltham-based Lycos and several businesses located
at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Adding more
broadband access is expected to fuel the trend.
From Global Crossing's Net link in Springfield, Equal Access
will use an existing tower at Mount Greylock in Adams to connect
by digital wireless links to MassMOCA, Pittsfield, and Great
Barrington, without the need for new towers, said Equal Access
president Daniel J. Kelley.
"We'll be 100 percent environmentally friendly," Kelley said,
adding that those connections will be backed up by leased high-capacity
Bell Atlantic lines and in time fiber-optic lines.
Equal Access Networks will install and operate the local system
from Springfield into the county, while Global Crossing - which
is building a five-continent fiber-optic network of nearly 100,000
route miles - will handle billing and customer service.
Tom Hubbard, vice president of the Massachusetts Technology
Collaborative, a quasi-public state agency that helped organize
Berkshire Connect, said his agency is already working with groups
in Cape Cod, Franklin County, and the Blackstone Valley that
want to repeat the Berkshire strategy.
While three years ago it seemed the only way Berkshire County
would get fast Net access would be through public subsidies,
Hubbard said it now seems the crucial step is for government
officials to help local businesses organize themselves to demonstrate
unserved demand for broadband access.
"The market has changed so rapidly, and there are a lot of providers
in the state now," Hubbard said. "Berkshire County proved that
if users in a region got together and really hung together to
the end, documenting their demand for high-speed access and
demanding attention from providers . . . there is real hope
that the market will respond" without the need for public subsidies.
Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston Globe
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