The town of Leverett, Mass., Friday is throwing the switch on a new municipal broadband network that will deliver up to 1 gig speeds, according to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
LeverettNet is billed as the first 'last mile' project to stem from the MassBroadband 123 project, which was funded with state money as well as a grant from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) subsidy established in the Obama 2009 economic stimulus program.
That middle mile project brought fiber to the town in 2014 and LeverettNet is bringing it to the townspeople (population 1,876).
According to the collaborative, a public agency that promotes tech growth in the state, Leverett residents that used to have to rely on dial-up or DSL or satellite to get on the Web will now have speeds approaching that 1 gig. The group said that the new net has an 80% plus connection rate.
Those on hand for the ceremonies will include Sandeep Taxali, broadband development officer with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversaw federal funding of $4 billion worth of BTOP broadband subsidies in a funding program that wrapped up Sept. 30.
