Vermont Has a New Kind of CUD

East Central Vermont Fiber (ECFiber) created the first model in 2008 as a grassroots community network. It worked. The Vermont legislature created an official statewide structure for towns to join together in 2015, and the reason is simple. Commercial internet companies focus on cities and town centers with lots of customers close together where profits are certain. CUDs will go where the private companies won’t: down the dirt roads, up the mountain hollows, and out to the farms and camps that get passed over because connecting them costs more than a company wants to spend.