Editor’s note: This commentary is by Stephen Whitaker, who for more than 25 years has voluntarily served as a citizen advocate for government accountability in regard to public records information access and privacy, technology and telecommunications. He is self-employed and lives in Montpelier.
[T]he Vermont Department of Public Service is selling out Vermonters’ interests by giving away the farm to FairPoint. Is this charity or in consideration for political campaign contributions?
The department is not advocating for the public by failing to write a 10-year telecommunications plan for 10 years, three versions missing, and then, under duress, “adopting” a draft without the required public hearings on a final draft as required by Vermont Statute 30 VSA 202d.
The proposed settlement would deny the Public Service Board the opportunity to ask tough questions of the witnesses, under oath, during the hearings which have not yet occurred in this proceeding.
Furthermore, the board is required to make an official finding on service quality as part of the pending proposed five-year Incentive Regulation Plan (IRP) docket with FairPoint. This docket was put on hold while the service quality docket was litigated. Sixty days after closing the service quality docket, if the Public Service Board is lulled into this deal with the devil, the IRP docket will recommence.
The Incentive Regulation Plan proposal, more importantly, is required by statute to be found to be consistent with the missing or illegally adopted 10-year telecommunications plan.
Imagine, the DPS objecting to there being an independent public advocate to do their job for them when there are such blatant conflicts of interest evident in representing FairPoint rather than the public interest. Welcome to “The Matrix.”
Similar events occurred in 1992 and the board suspended review of the Vermont Telecommunications Agreement with New England Telephone due to the missing plan, and the Legislature formed a Joint Telecommunication Committee to review the adequacy of the draft plan. The same urgency is necessary today.
It is entirely likely that the plan was intentionally vague and useless precisely to not run afoul of the pending Incentive Regulation Plan.
Contract regulation, under 30 VSA 226a, provides for an independent public advocate to be appointed by the attorney general in such situations where the department and the company are promoting the same agenda and the department can no longer claim to be representing the public without conflict. All the supporting documents to the joint petition are also required to be made public.
When the Public Service Board Chairman Jim Volz proposed at the pre-hearing conference proceeding to review the IRP under that section of statute, the department and FairPoint both filed strong objections. Imagine, the DPS objecting to there being an independent public advocate to do their job for them when there are such blatant conflicts of interest evident in representing FairPoint rather than the public interest. Welcome to “The Matrix.”
The acceptance of the CAF2 funds (Connect America Funds), amounting to over $50 million over six years to build more copper-based DSL service when it will never reach the speeds that are the statutory goal of symmetric 100Mbps, amounts to another sellout of Vermont’s best interests and a giveaway to the company. The statutory goals of 30 VSA 202c require that we not promote investment in “soon to be outmoded technology,” which is the very definition of copper-based DSL and DOCSIS cable modems.
Now we can again see why the department did not write a real 10-year telecommunications plan to reach the statutory goal of fiber optic to every address by 2024. It would be contrary to FairPoint’s and Comcast’s business plans. Over $100 million per year leaves Vermont from a revenue stream of this inadequate broadband service. This is the money we should be investing in building fiber along the lines of the ECFiber model.
We might as well explicitly acknowledge the Department of Public Service as being advocates for the companies and quit pretending that they represent the public’s interests.
The Public Service Board should reject the settlement and request that the attorney general appoint an independent public advocate to take over and start really representing the public in both this service quality docket as well as the soon-to-be recommenced Incentive Regulation Plan docket.
