In the 1980s, Frenchboro residents gained the ability to make off-island phone calls. Today, they’re looking into wireless Internet.

New technology has made Internet access quicker and more affordable for Maine islanders to use. In turn, faster Internet service often makes year-round living more feasible for new island residents.

Frenchboro’s New Net Families

On Frenchboro, the Internet is partly responsible for bringing two new families to the island, the Stuarts and the Davises.

Rob and Lorna Stuart always planned to live on Frenchboro after retirement. But when a friend on Frenchboro had a stroke, Rob moved to the island earlier than expected to help with his lobster business.

Rob’s heart wasn’t into lobstering and he knew he had to find another line of work.

“I knew I wanted to live on the island year-round and…I wasn’t going to be in the lobster business forever,” Rob said.

He created an online business selling rare books for three Maine academic libraries. Rob conducts all his business on-island by using a fast satellite Internet connection.

“It’s allowed me in the last five years to build a business that supports me,” he said.

Lorna Stuart followed her husband to Frenchboro and subsequently took a teaching post at the multi-grade school there. She says high-speed Internet has quickly become an integral part of the school.

“It really revolutionized the kind of learning that went on in the classroom,” Lorna said.

According to Lorna the Internet blends in perfectly with the spontaneous learning environment of a small multigrade school. For example, when a fifth grader walked in wearing a red L.L. Bean fleece coat, Lorna gave him a five-week research project to trace every fiber of the jacket, from origin to finished product.

“It’s that kind of teaching you can do,” she said.

Alan Davis’s move to Frenchboro was made economically possible because he didn’t have to leave his career behind to do it.

Davis was working for a Massachusetts software startup company at the time of the move and assumed he would have to quit, but his company didn’t see it that way.

“They wanted to keep my talents,” he said.

The company so desperately wanted Alan to telecommute from Frenchboro that they even asked to make a large donation to the school in exchange for use of its high-speed internet connection. Instead, Alan used a satellite dish to make computer-to-computer presentations to his clients right from his island home.

The system wasn’t perfect. The connection created a fifteen-second lag-time between what Alan did on his computer and what his clients saw on theirs. When on the phone with clients, Alan had to learn to talk behind what his mouse was doing.

Also, the satellite service was weather-dependent; Frenchboro cloud cover cancelled out Alan’s connection ten percent of the time.

“I had a lot of trouble with that,” he said.

Still, it wasn’t the company that ended the arrangement, but Alan. He felt the company was growing too large for his tastes. After a brief vacation, he’ll look for another computer job via the Web.

“I’ll be able to find another position,” he said.

Current Frenchboro teacher Erica Davis, Alan’s wife, says high-speed Internet is also cutting down on mainland commutes. She says one click at Amazon.com might eliminate a two-day off-island shopping trip.

“The post office is probably a busier place than it used to be,” she said.

Brand-New Technology

The technology that’s fueling this high-speed Island internet revolution wasn’t available as recently as two years ago.

Cranberry Isles resident Malcolm Harrison told the Island Coalition in 2004 that inferior Internet access was holding the island economy back. He had reason to complain: dial-up connections were slower and more expensive to use for islanders than mainlanders. Matinicus residents who used the Internet had to pay toll charges by the minute.

But Maine Internet providers have recently closed the island technological gap. In the last two years, for example, Midcoast Internet Solutions (MIS) has wired Matinicus for high-speed Internet, provided Islesboro with two wireless locations, and given North Haven complete wireless coverage.

These kinds of projects have been made possible because of the new ways Internet can be transmitted to computers. It used to be that an Internet signal could only piggyback on existing phone lines, but now Internet providers can beam signals quickly from towers or satellites.

Some mainland coastal towns are dependent on island towers for high-speed internet access.

“Northport [on the western side of Penobscot Bay] doesn’t have any broadband to speak of at all, unless they have a view to Islesboro,” said Jason Philbrook, president of MIS.

This puts islanders in a unique position. Whereas they once had to beg for the attention of phone companies, they are now sometimes pursued by Internet providers.

Transport and maintenance of high-tech equipment to remote islands can be a challenge, says Philbrook. Ferry schedules make construction slow and storms can wreak havoc with equipment. A recent storm knocked out $9,000 of MIS island equipment. To power island towers, Internet providers often must use battery and solar power.

But Philbrook says the islands don’t present any insurmountable challenges to Internet access. He says the only thing holding back further island net expansion is a lack of tech support staff on the islands.

Alan Davis agrees. He says his Frenchboro neighbors often must rely on his imperfect computer skills when problems arise.

“The infrastructure out here is pretty weak,” he said.

A Need for More Speed?

As so often happens with computer technology, this new high-speed net service is already considered too slow by islanders who use it. Rob Stuart says he needs even higher-speed access now that his webpage is up.

“The lack of DSL and speed is a harm to any island-based Internet business,” he said.

Alan Davis says the island’s telephone company has discussed providing faster and more reliable DSL and wireless service to Frenchboro. If that doesn’t happen, Davis says he, Stuart and other net-dependent islanders might pool their resources together to bring faster Internet access to the island themselves.