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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 31 J U LY 1 3 , 2 0 1 5 month leasing fee the city no lon- ger is paying to its former network provider. An important element of the city's partnership with GWI, he adds, is that both parties agreed the new fi ber optic network should have "open access" to other service provid- ers. Doing so, he says, should spur competition, leading to lower costs and more choices for local residents and businesses. After the fi rst phases of the net- work are completed, he adds, the agreement calls for the city to share in 5% of revenue GWI receives from the business and residential custom- ers it signs up. "You have to get a lot of customers signed up to get a lot of money com- ing in," Dumais says, noting that it's too soon for either the city or GWI to know just how many South Portland residents and businesses will sign up for one gigabit Internet. First and foremost, he says, the city's interest has been to greatly improve Internet service for its schools and municipal offi ces, with the added benefi t being that it leverages GWI's access to potential new customers within the neighborhoods that will be connected by the four miles of initial fi ber optic cable being installed. Asked if the city eventually would expand the fi ber optic network through its entire geographic footprint, Dumais replies: " at's tough. Would I like to do it? Absolutely. Is it feasible? I'm not sure yet. We don't want to raise our taxes in order to accomplish it." e most likely path for expansion, Dumais says, will involve identifying clusters of residential or large-scale business customers who want gigabit Internet service and are suffi cient enough in their numbers to gener- ate the revenue needed to justify the build-out costs. A shift in the wind? Kittredge regards the South Portland project as a shining example of how "nimble, cost-eff ective and creative solu- tions are possible when your goal is to provide world-class Internet service." Elsewhere in Maine, he's encouraged that Islesboro voters approved at their May 30 town meeting $206,830 in fund- ing for engineering, site development and other related costs as the essential fi rst step in having GWI install a fi ber optic gigabit Internet network on the island of 600 year-round residents. e plan is to have that work completed in time for another town meeting later this year to approve a municipal bond in the range of $2.5 million to $3 million to fund the project. e Portland-based technology company Tilson, which did the feasi- bility study for the Islesboro project, is exploring the feasibility of expanding Rockport's gigabit network into the neighboring city of Rockland. It also was hired to do a feasibility study for Sanford, which Kittredge says faces the particular problem of having to connect to the 3 Ring Binder in order to be able to create a network that would serve the greatest number of customers. Tilson's maxi- mum build-out scenario, which con- nects all the key community anchor institutions in Sanford, envisions the project would spur economic develop- ment adding "between $47 and $192 million to the Sanford-Springvale region's economic output over the next 10 years." e statewide challenge, Kittredge says, involves fi nding the political will and capital to invest the estimated $1.1 billion to $1.65 billion needed to build a fi ber optic gigabit network covering the entire state. Maine's relatively low population density and challenging geography make it a money-losing scenario for Internet service providers to build out fi ber networks on their own in all but the most urban areas. " ere is not going to be a white knight riding in to take care of us," he says. "So it's going to take lots of diff er- ent solutions, lots of diff erent models." Ja m e s M c Ca rt h Y , M a i n e b i z s e n i o r writer, can be reached at Jmcc arthY @ maineBiZ.BiZ and @ Jame sMaineBiZ Augusta | Bangor | Brunswick | Ellsworth | Portland 1-800-564-0111 | eatonpeabody.com Seth Brewster - Litigation Edward Feibel - Employment / ERISA Alfred Frawley - Intellectual Property Michael Hahn - Commercial Banking Bruce Hochman - Commercial Banking Erica Johanson - Litigation John Moran - Business / Corporate David Pierson - Construction Neal Pratt - Litigation Matthew Worthen - Real Estate Meet Our Portland Attorneys There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight There is not going to be a white knight riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going riding in to take care of us. So it's going to take lots of different solutions, lots of different models. — Fletcher Kittredge, CEO of GWI

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