MACHIASPORT — Local residents could soon have the option to contract with Fidium Fiber for faster internet service.
The company’s quiet surveying activity in town left the Machiasport Planning Board searching for answers about the project during its meeting Thursday.
It all started with a rumor.
At last week’s Planning Board meeting, Chair Robert Arseneau said he had heard rumblings that Fidium is “laying down fiber” for broadband in Machiasport.
The information came from Planning Board member Michael Hinerman, who confirmed to Monitor Local that he spoke directly with a Fidium surveyor.
Hinerman, who was not at the meeting, said he learned that “cable work was to be done.” Beyond that, he said he was not clear on what exactly Fidium is planning.
On Monday, Sarah Davis, vice president of market development for Fidium Fiber, a full fiber-optic internet service provider, confirmed that what Hinerman heard was accurate.
“We’re going to cover the whole town,” Davis said.
Broadband internet has become a major advocacy issue in rural development in recent years. A post-COVID-19, peer-reviewed study by the Center on Rural Innovation found that higher broadband adoption is associated with a 213 percent increase in business growth.
The study also reported a 44 percent increase in gross domestic product with broadband adoption, along with gains in self‑employment for communities like Machiasport.
For some residents, better connectivity is little incentive when weighed against the potential for higher costs.
“Every time we look, there’s a new project,” one resident said at the Planning Board meeting. “So many of us live on the main drag and already have access (to reliable internet).”
Fidium’s strategic media campaign did not announce a Machiasport broadband project.
However, the company won a Federal Communications Commission contract in 2020 to provide broadband to more than 11,000 locations in rural Maine, according to public records. Fidium, then operating as Consolidated Communications, received $31 million in Maine through Phase I of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF.
The award was among the largest given to the four companies that won bids in the state.
SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite internet service, received the highest award in Maine at $34 million. The SpaceX and Fidium awards include locations in Washington County.
Winners of the FCC bid must comply with standards set forth by the RDOF. If contractors fall out of compliance, RDOF can recover the funds with additional percentages assigned for penalties.
At the six‑year benchmark, contractors are expected to establish broadband service in the census blocks tied to their Phase I awards.
Davis said in a previous interview that the company’s goal is to provide 85 percent of internet users in Maine with access to fiber-optic networks by 2027. That aggressive undertaking overlaps with the six‑year RDOF buildout deadline.
“Part of our expansion process is to have the engineering team come out and survey the area before any infrastructure is constructed,” Davis told Monitor Local, publicly confirming the work for the first time. “We expect to begin construction in Machiasport around June, with completion set for October.”
Davis said work completed in October will fulfill the RDOF Phase I commitment and will also align with requirements under the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, or BEAD.
BEAD was created under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to help close the technology gap in rural communities through grants to states and U.S. territories.
Fidium received several million dollars in grant funding from the Maine Connectivity Authority, the state agency that administers broadband expansion programs and will distribute Maine’s share of BEAD funding.
Davis said the November completion timeline could shift if BEAD‑related compliance requirements affect the project.
For the Planning Board, the next steps include a discovery process to learn more about the project.
Davis told Monitor Local that the broadband improvements will not cost the town anything. She said her team will also meet with town leadership to address any concerns before construction begins this summer.
Machiasport residents now have access to broadband in some areas through Axiom Technologies and Spectrum.
Davis said Fidium’s upload and download speeds will be about twice as fast as the broadband options currently available in the region.
Melissa S. Razdrih is a Community Reporting Fellow receiving training through the Journalism New England Career Lab to do civic reporting that provides people in towns across New England with the information they need to be engaged in their community.
