Comcast/Xfinity service is now available to almost every home in Tolland. The service includes TV, Internet, and Phone. Additionally, as a Comcast/Xfinity Customer you can purchase Mobile phone service too. Comcast has completed the build of the Tolland fiber optic network, in mid-October. Home were connected beginning in mid-July. If you wish to get service from Comcast, you can visit www.xfinity.com.
Some Broadband History - It’s been an eleven-year journey to get FTTH here in this rural town of 525 homes in Western Massachusetts. After moving here, I wanted to make a phone call and get hooked up to the Internet in 2011 when a fast Internet speed was 100 Mbps, but the town was unserved, with no cable, no internet save for hotspots and satellite with poor bandwidth, data caps, and latency issues. In 2011, I joined the Tolland Broadband Committee, chaired by Gloria Gery and have worked intentionally and persistently to provide Broadband to the town. I became the Chair of the committee in 2013
Fast forward to 2019, after many fits and starts with solutions from building our own (expensive and unsustainable) network, hybrid fiber and wireless, wireless, several companies who never built a network but thought they could, and a cable company that offered but later went into bankruptcy.
In 2019 Comcast, Massachusetts Broadband Institute, and The Town of Tolland, MA entered a Public, Private Partnership where we all had skin in the game and we were on our way to the best FTTH network we could ask for, saving the town over $1,000,000. The agreement required 96% coverage, Comcast is close to 99%. This project was done during the pandemic and will be completed ahead of schedule. Kudos to Comcast’s Ray LaBorde and his team.
In December 2022, Governor Baker and his team celebrated the completion of Broadband networks in the previously unserved/underserved 50+ Western Mass towns. The celebration took place in Ashfield, MA where there were 100+ attendees from Western MA and the folks involved with this project
There are many people to thank, Office of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Lt. Governor Karyn Polito, Peter Larkin, Deval Patrick, Cornell Roberts, Alicia Matthews, Eileen Lahey, Ray LaBorde, Henchey Dave, Selectman Eric Munson, Jr, Steve DellaGuistina and Patrick Barrett, Gloria Gery, Danny Duval, Myles Trachtenberg, Mark Orenstein, Hannah Gangaware, all the folks in the Tolland Town Hall, all the townspeople who voted to support and believed in this project. Thank you!!
