Broadband Internet Committee
The Broadband Internet Committee will meet on Tuesdays at 5:00 p.m. at the Town Office. The meeting dates may change so please check in often.
Broadband Internet Committee members are:
Committee Chair Ann Frenning Kossuth has been coming to Northport all her life. Now that her family lives here full-time, she looks forward to helping bring better Internet service to the town. She is in awe of the wide-ranging talents brought to the table by the rest of the team.
Vice-Chair Jamie Ritter is Maine’s State Librarian, and he serves as a permanent member of NetworkMaine which delivers high-speed fiber broadband to 815 schools and libraries through the Maine School and Library Network. He’s excited to be part of the effort to bring fast, reliable, and affordable broadband to Northport residents.
Secretary Katie Foster is the Food Safety and Quality Manager at Ducktrap River of Maine and holds a degree in Food Science from UMaine. She is happy to call Northport home after growing up in Georgetown, where Internet access was a community-driven project. Katie knows firsthand that those without adequate Internet can be at a disadvantage for educational, work, and personal needs.
Eager to contribute to his hometown, Co-Secretary Avery Kreamer has been a Northport resident most of his life. With experience in coordinating an after-school tutoring program and service trips to cities recovering from natural disasters, Avery now hopes to help Northport get connected online to ensure opportunities to grow and thrive together. *
A third-generation Bayside kid, Julian Sheffield bought her year-round home in Northport in 2003 and retired here in 2018. She has managed IT for various companies since 1984, and she is tired of taking turns on pathetic Internet. She now hopes to assist the Committee to improve service for all.
Recent transplant Brady Brim-DeForest has spent his career building technology-driven companies. Today he leads Theorem, a product engineering and innovation consultancy that helps the Fortune 1000. He has experience with community-built and community-managed fiber networks and is excited to help elevate standards for residential and commercial connectivity across Northport.
Born in Belfast, raised in Northport, Karl Beiser worked for many years as librarian/technology project manager for the Maine State Library. Though retired, Karl continues to value and support enhanced Internet connectivity, not only for the general good, but also to support his part-time business providing training services to libraries.
Bill Frysinger recently retired after starting and owning a Servpro franchise in Belfast. Prior to that he was a design engineering project manager for medical devices. He has been struggling to get decent home internet access for years and is delighted to be part of this community effort.
For a link to the Broadband Internet Committee Meeting Agendas, click here.
For a link to the Broadband Internet Committee Meeting Minutes, click here.
Committee Mission -
To provide every home and business in Northport with access to affordable, high-speed, state-of-the-art Internet service.
Northport's broadband committee is trying to get better broadband penetration into our town and
particularly our unserved and underserved rural areas.
One
of the challenges is that the Federal government considers Northport
adequately served
with broadband and ineligible for funding. The Maine Broadband Coalition
has created a speed test map to correct this misconception, and your
participation would help Northport families get better connectivity.
This is a very simple test and doesn't
save any information except what you give it explicitly, and Maine
Broadband Coalition would like you to check back and run it more than
once at different times of day. If you could participate it would be
wonderful, if you could forward this to your friends and acquaintances
on the back roads of Northport it would help a lot too! Thanks.
Please run the following speedtest from your Northport home as soon and as often as possible:
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