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from: Progressive Party

Burlington Telecom

Today was an exciting day. I got to sign up for telecommunications service with my city’s own provider - Burlington Telecom. My wait had been just under two decades.

What took so long? In 1988, when I was appointed to the Burlington Electric Commission, I had missed the city’s consideration of whether to provide its own cable TV service. While Mayor Bernie Sanders had been clear on the need for local public control, the City Council had been divided and uncertain, and had looked to the electric commission. In reviewing what had happened, I saw a letter to the council from the previous commission chair. In it, he warned that a public system could be a disaster – that cable rates could soar to $15 per month. That helped scuttle any hope of the city creating its own cable system. Sanders negotiated a decent deal for the city, including specific consumer protections, and the franchise was awarded to Cox Cable.

A federal court later threw out those protections, while leaving Cox’s lucrative franchise in place. Cox was eventually taken over by the crooked Rigas family at Adelphia (as of two weeks ago, they finally started serving time on their 2004 convictions.) Last year, our part of the bankrupt Adelphia was bought by Comcast. We never had any say in any of that.

But those days are over, which is a good thing, because in the meantime, thanks to the internet, broadband service had become critical to the city’s economy, and far too important to be left to regulation only by a congress (mostly) bought and paid for by the telecom industry. Also in the meantime, technology has advanced, and a further silver lining to Adelphia’s refusal to sell or lease its network to Burlington is that we have a newer-generation completely optical fiber network.

So now, finally, after a long legal, political, regulatory, and financial gestation, and a frustratingly long, oh-so-prudent build-out, my street is finally ready. And I’m signed up. The service will be faster, cheaper, and simpler than before. And if it ever fails to be, the managers will hear about it - from us owners. And no profits will be exported outside the community and state to fund lavish lifestyles and spectacular shower curtains.

It is not a very long list of utility services that are so critical an underpinning of our private and public economies that they need to be served by ourselves for ourselves – publicly, that is. It feels very good, that in Burlington, at least, we can add telecom to police, fire, streets, and power. Now that we can communicate, let’s do healthcare.