The effort to explore what it would take to establish a municipal broadband program to provide residents with high-speed internet will be moving forward.

Saul Raposo, the chair of the Municipal Broadband Advisory, attended the July 11 Select Board meeting to give an update on the group’s work.

The committee has met a handful of times and Raposo said there’s a consensus that it’s worth looking into the issue more deeply.

“It’s a win-win, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “We can all pretty much agree that the reason we’re having this conversation is because of the current provider not exactly being a very good corporate citizen… in that they have a monopoly, and that monopoly allows them to nor really care about their customers.”

The group has decided that the first step should be to collect more data. And collecting data costs money, Raposo said. 

He asked the board to approve funds to hire a consultant firm to evaluate the demand in the community, the feasibility of installing a system and how much it would all cost. That consultant work would cost between $35,000 and $50,000.

“They are the ones who have the expertise,” Raposo said. 

Town Administrator Shawn MacInnes said he’s looking into different funding sources to cover that cost, including American Rescue Plan funds. Depending on the source of the funds, the spending may need approval at the October Town Meeting. 

The committee has also looked into what other towns across the state have done. 

Currently, Fairhaven is working quickly to put together its own municipal broadband system. Raposo said that the Fairhaven committee’s survey found broad support for the idea of a municipal broadband service. 

Raposo said he’d also be interested in exploring whether Dartmouth could partner with Fairhaven and New Bedford to establish a network. The committee has already met with one of their counterparts in Fairhaven, who shared a wealth of information about the process.

“We have reached the point in our society where a broadband system is not a nice-too-have. It’s not for watching YouTube videos,” Raposo said. “It’s a way of making a living. I think that we as a community owe it to the residents to at least take a look at this.”