Construction on the regional expansion of Sherburne’s municipal open-access fiber network is advancing across neighboring Chenango County borders, backed by a $6.9 million state grant intended to turn a local pilot project into a regional community-owned utility model.

The project, branded Sherburne Connect, originated as an early municipal fiber deployment operated in coordination with the village’s century-old public electric utility, Sherburne Electric, after being designated in 2022 as one of four initial municipalities (alongside Nichols, Diana, and Pitcairn) to participate in New York State’s $1 billion ConnectALL initiative.

Partnering with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Empire State Development, the village shared an initial $10 million state pilot allocation to engineer a publicly owned open-access fiber network utilizing Sherburne Electric’s existing poles, bucket trucks, and municipal rights-of-way.

This project initially passed roughly 1,800 to 2,000 premises inside the village of Sherburne and immediate electric territory. Village of Sherburne Board of Trustees meeting minutes from last June indicate that the core network in Sherburne now has more than 1,000 active subscribers.

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Those same meeting minutes indicate that Sherburne officials had requested a deadline extension but were denied it by Albany. “Superintendent [Travis] DuBois said Sherburne is furthest ahead with this fiber project than the other 13 systems and Albany want to show at least one project closed out by year end,” the minutes indicate.