Fiber Optic Has Potential to Attract New Norfolk Residents

By Kurt Steele

Kim Maxwell, a Norfolk resident who has been involved in a number of communications businesses, has been talking since last spring with town leaders and residents about the benefits of Norfolk building its own fiber optic high-speed system. “If fiber high-speed services were available in Norfolk before they were in surrounding communities, Norfolk could realize economic growth and potentially have a more sustainable school system without compromising its rural character,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell has taken the next step with the organization of the Norfolk Digital Council, a group of thirteen Norfolk residents with diverse backgrounds and skills. They have a dual job: study how best to bring fiber to Norfolk and sketch out what town attributes are necessary besides fiber to attract new business and residents to the town. The council will also be surveying current residents about their Internet and other communications needs.

Council members are Libby Borden, John Coston, Tricia Deans, Ann DeCerbo, Rohit Desai, Kevin Haitsch, Kate Johnson, Kim Maxwell, Mary Reeve, Jonathan Rotolo, Julie Scharnberg, Bryan Stanton and Kurt Steele.

Borden, the outgoing chair of the town’s Economic Development Commission, said, “There is much promise considering fiber optic in the context of attracting new businesses and residents to our town. Of course, we will also need to consider what new residents would be looking for with respect to schools, shopping, housing, recreation, arts, transportation and other aspects of living in a small town.”

It’s no secret that small and middle-sized towns across the country are fighting to attract new residents and businesses as younger residents move to big cities and longtime business shut down. Many of these towns are in desperate need of new jobs, tax revenues, children to help populate the local schools and local shoppers with pockets full of money.

Although fiber is now installed in a number of larger cities and is used widely by businesses and governments for high-speed communications, fiber initiatives in smaller cities have stalled or gone much slower than anyone thought would be the case several years ago. That includes the Wired West consortium of small western Massachusetts towns, which has been working to bring fiber to them for a number of years.

Actually, fiber has already been run to Norfolk under Connecticut’s Nutmeg Network to provide high-speed connections to the school, the firehouse and, potentially, town hall for educational and public safety purposes. Unfortunately, it is not available for use by local residents and businesses.

Maxwell believes Norfolk’s small scale works to its benefit.  “As fiber alone is not enough, and not enough for any small community, Norfolk can work out its infrastructure and network problems with just one set of stakeholders who for the most part know each other. Critical to that success will be engaging the many homeowners in Norfolk who live in New York or elsewhere some time of the year. Our Council, with five of its thirteen members in that category, can build relationships and work the streets, so to speak, in ways larger geographic communities would find impossible.  I look forward to a summer filled with just such building of bridges, from which our network and town improvements will inevitably flow.”