Broadband To the Kingdom
Clifford of Vermont Lands Contract
By M. D. Drysdale

Clifford of Vermont Production Manager Scott Fullam rolls a spool of fiber optic cable across the floor of Clifford's Quik-Pull facility in Randolph. The firm has been awarded a million-dollar contract for 400 miles of fiber optic cable to carry broadband capabilities to the Northeast Kingdom. (Herald / Tim Calabro)

Clifford of Vermont has landed a million-dollar contract to provide 400 miles of fiber optic cable to bring broadband computer service to the Northeast Kingdom.

Clifford, located in Bethel and Randolph, was the low bidder for supplying cable for the "North-Link network" being spearheaded by Northern Enterprises, Inc., a non-profit development organization in St. Albans.

North-Link will provide a rural region of six counties an affordable "backbone" for high-speed Internet access, according to Northern Enterprises' director Connie Stanley-Little.

The network will connect to existing cable in Plattsburg and Albany, N.Y., Montreal, and New Hampshire, she said. It will not connect individual users but will provide a skeletal framework that private companies can tap in order to bring internet services to individual towns and businesses.

The cable will provide enormous capability, she noted, and should provide the necessary infrastructure for decades. It will be 144-strand wire; to put that in perspective, all of Los Angeles can be currently served by just two strands, she said.

Stanley-Little said she was thrilled when Clifford of Vermont—the only Vermont firm to bid—won the contract.

The company is a national distributor of wire, cable, fiber optic, electronic and wireless products, and related supplies and equipment. It was founded by Ted Clifford in 1946 in Bethel where it is still headquartered. Its Quik-Pull operation has manufacturing and warehouse space on South Pleasant St. Ext. in Randolph.

Clifford's products are used for a wide range of telecommunications, control, and networking applications as well as security and fire alarm systems, and city traffic signal systems.

Clifford's president, Maynard Nelson, said the contract wouldn't mean more employees for the firm but will be a boost nevertheless.

"It's always nice to land an unexpected contract," he said.

Cyrus Parker, director of sales, was delighted and noted the work would spread over several years. Though Clifford has never contracted with Northern Enterprises before, it has been providing fiber optic cable for a big municipal project in Burlington.

The engineering and design for North-Link has been awarded to another Vermont firm, Adesta, LLC, and it's hoped that construction of the poles and lines can go to a Vermont company as well. That contract will be let in April. The first communities to be connected, Stanley-Little said, will be the tiny border town of Norton and the city of Newport.

Funding for the $10-million North Link project is supported by a $3-million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration and a broad array of other private and public sources, Stanley-Little said.

If it's successful, she hopes it can be spread into the rest of the state.