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CenterFuse Broadband Feasibility Report <br />business community. A more powerful way to work with Consolidated would be through the <br />creation of a public / private partnership between the company with CenterFuse. Consolidated is <br />interested in such partnerships because they have joined partnerships elsewhere. Consider the <br />following example: <br />In 2019, the New Hampshire legislature passed bill SBI 70 that allows municipalities to bond for <br />a broadband network as long as the town doesn't have existing broadband speeds of at least 25/3 <br />Mbps. Several small towns in the state took advantage of the new legislation and entered into a <br />partnership with Consolidated, the new incumbent telephone company serving much of the state. <br />Consolidated entered the New Hampshire market when it acquired FairPoint in 2017. <br />One example is Dublin, a town of a little more than 1,500 residents. This town was not served by <br />Consolidated and had no available DSL broadband — meaning satellite or cellular broadband was <br />the only choice for residents. In the announced partnership, the town of Dublin is financing a <br />$1.3 million bond to build fiber to every resident and business in the town. The voters passed the <br />bond by a vote of 223 to 5. The town will own the network and has partnered with Consolidated <br />to operate the business. <br />Consolidated will make the bond payments, so the town is not on the hook for covering the bond. <br />However, the residents of the town are the ones really making the payments. Consolidated plans <br />to add a surcharge to each broadband bill of $11.50 per month until the bonds are retired. <br />Residents are not required to subscribe to broadband and won't pay the surcharge unless they are <br />a Consolidated broadband customer. <br />This partnership benefits everybody. Homeowners get great broadband on fiber, a huge step up <br />in technology. Consolidated gets new customers that are assumably profitable. The town benefits <br />from having given everybody the opportunity to have much faster broadband. <br />The New Hampshire towns were not in the same situation as Ellensburg since there was no <br />existing broadband. But the partnership demonstrates that Consolidated is willing to pursue a <br />reasonable partnership. If Ellensburg wants better broadband, then a conversation with <br />Consolidated would be an important early step. It's likely that Consolidated would want a local <br />contribution of some sort, but since Consolidated already has a 35% market share in Ellensburg a <br />partnership would likely be quite a bit different than the New Hampshire example. <br />C. Establish a New Fiber Network in the Community. <br />There are a dozen different possible business plans for bringing a new fiber network to <br />Ellensburg. For example, City Fiber could build broadband to every resident. A new ISP could <br />come to the city and build a fiber network. CenterFuse has bonding capability and you could <br />raise the money to build a new fiber network that could be staffed as a new business, operated <br />with a partner, or used to provide open access to multiple ISPs. <br />To contemplate such expansion of fiber would generally warrant a full fiber feasibility study that <br />studies the cost of building fiber and that creates various business models that look at a myriad of <br />operating models. <br />Page 14 <br />