AccessPlus Awarded Grant to Bring Fiber to Affordable Housing Units

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
03:15PM / Friday, April 18, 2025Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Internet provider AccessPlus was recently awarded the Massachusetts Broadband Institute Retrofit program grant.

"We are committed to delivering high-quality, high-speed internet to the Pittsfield community," said Kevin Alward, CEO of AccessPlus in a recent press release. "This grant allows us to further our mission of ensuring that everyone has access to the fast and reliable internet they need."

The grant was a part of the Healey-Driscoll administration's $10.4 million initiative to modernize the public housing internet in Massachusetts.

This grant will be used to bring high speed fiber internet to 13 multi-unit dwelling properties. This serves 587 housing units in Pittsfield, helping those who work from home.

"Some of the major benefits are the work from home we’ve seen so much of that through the years with covid but really became the standard is that work from and before COVID, if you had one person at home, it was not a big deal to work off the connection that was there," Chief Operating Officer Jason Cummins said. "With fiber broadband you got the symmetrical, that's the big key to that it’s symmetrical internet so you can have the entire household work from home."

AccessPlus has been with the community for more than 20 years and is the only second round award winner to provide a minimum starting speed of 500 Mbps (megabits per second0 internet connectivity to all its housing units, with options for residents to upgrade to multi-gig fiber internet for even greater speeds.

Just about a year ago AcessPlus' Fiber Broadband Network went online with the first business customers in Pittsfield.

"We’ve been focused on business users up to about a year and a half ago when we really identified that the market here in Western Mass really could use fiber you know a fiber to the play," Cummins said.

AccessPlus has also applied for a third round of funding with MBI to help expand their fiber internet access to more affordable housing units.

Their goal is to expand access to the rest of the Berkshires as well. For those interested in applying, visit www.getaccessplus.com.

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Pittsfield Ice Rink Now Open

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
12:00PM / Saturday, February 07, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The long-awaited ice skating rink is finally open for free public skating.

Although late in the season, the rink will be open with posted hours from dawn to dusk, but may be closed at times for maintenance of the ice.

Since the rink is equipped with lighting, the city has no objections to night skating; however, skaters are urged to remain mindful of safety, said James McGrath, park, open space and natural resource program manager.

It was previously reported that the city received a grant to offer skate rentals. However, because of the shortened season, this initiative has been postponed to future years.

The outdoor 50-by-100-foot refrigerated rink will be able to stay open until the ambient temperature rises above 45 degrees, McGrath said.

This is currently projected to be the third week in March but could be sooner based on the weather conditions, he said.

During the development of this initiative, many event ideas were tossed around however those will also have to wait until future seasons because of the shortened season.

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