April 18, 2018
The Town of Penobscot Maine is taking steps to move the community’s internet service into the
21st century. Through the Penobscot Broadband Committee, the Town is seeking experts to plan
and engineered design for a broadband infrastructure to serve homes, businesses, and other
buildings on the Penobscot Bay. A Request for Information has been sent out to find internet
service providers or other partnering firms who wish to design a broadband network and who also
have an interest in system implementation as a potential next phase.
To encourage better educational opportunities, year-round residency, to attract and retain
businesses, to provide telehealth services, to improve access to financial services for businesses, and
to entice seasonal residents to stay longer, Penobscot has identified the need for reliable, high-speed
internet. The community includes many home-based entrepreneurs who use the internet for
bookkeeping in addition to their family/residential use. Broadband will help support telework
opportunities, municipal video conferencing, telehealth services, and education opportunities for
both our year-round population and seasonal residents. Further information is available at
www.penobscotmaine.org.
The Town of Penobscot, with generous assistance from the Island Institute, Rockland, has funding
for the initial phase. Significant other sources of funding for a broadband project implementation
will be sought at the private, local, county, state and federal levels. With a strong sense of
community, located central to the Blue Hill Peninsula, and Acadia National Park in our backyard,
the Town is well poised to achieve our goal of sustaining a community for a long time to come.
Broadband will help attract and retain families, businesses, and visitors.
The Penobscot Broadband Committee anticipates receiving responses by July 11, 2018, and having
an completed engineered design completed by December 31, 2018.
For more information, contact katzvolenik@gmail.com