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Date: 6/29/2021
WEST SPRINGFIELD – During the West Springfield Town Council meeting on June 21, the council unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement with Westfield Gas and Electric (WG&E) and the establishment of an enterprise fund dedicated to municipal broadband, and the first of two votes needed to establish a municipal light plant in West Springfield.
With these votes, the council took its first steps in establishing a town-owned broadband utility to provide internet services to West Springfield residents.
For some time, Mayor William Reichelt has been working to bring municipal broadband internet service to West Springfield. Reichelt put together the package and submitted it to the West Springfield Town Council in hopes of earning the confirmation to move forward with the partnership with Whip City Fiber.
West Springfield has identified four pilot areas. These areas are split into the service areas, all located near Westfield Street. “Those were the highest responses from our original survey for Fiber,” said Reichelt.
He explained that with the four pilot areas, they are hoping to get an idea of what the take up rate is and if people truly go through with the service. “It’s great to say that you want fiber but you’ve really got to sign on and spend $75 to get our fiber and ditch Comcast, and everything else.”
After completing the four pilot areas, they will plan on how to expand to the rest of the town.
“I think it will be a little easier now because we all have streaming services, a lot of people don’t really need cable, especially younger people are less likely to get cable and are more knowledgeable with apps,” stated Reichelt.
“We have been researching different options to provide West Springfield residents with a high quality, reliable internet service,” Reichelt added. “With the shift to remote learning and remote work over the past 15 months, we have experienced the limitations of and frustrations with the internet options currently available in our area. With Comcast’s data cap implementation on the horizon, we knew that it was an ideal time for us to move forward with this significant investment in town-owned infrastructure to ensure our residents have quality services available to them.”
Town Council President Brian Griffin agreed, saying, “We’ve had a long standing issue in our community. We do have Comcast, but we wanted a competitor … We found that [competitor] and found a high quality service option.”
This new service will offer faster speeds and will be more reliable for residents.
Reichelt estimated, for the entire community to receive this network, the cost will range between $15 to $20 million.
“The idea of this is that we’ll bond, we’ll create an enterprise fund, we’ll bond against the enterprise fund, and then the rate payers will pay back that loan. So, it won’t cost the taxpayers anything per se. It will be like a utility, the rate payers will cover the cost of the bond,” stated Reichelt.
Griffin recognized the mayor and Town Attorney Kate O’Brien-Scott for their hard work and determination during this process.
He said, “This is the next generation service that people deserve and I look forward to getting it myself.”