[O]ne of the Northeast’s largest telecommunications companies has cancelled a $15,000 underwriting contract with VTDigger days after the news organization published an article about FirstLight’s continued use of Huawei gear in its Vermont network. The company was four months into the underwriting buy.
FirstLight also threatened legal action and denied that it was actively using Huawei gear in its network. The company claims the story was one-sided, despite FirstLight’s rejection of multiple requests for substantive comment.
FirstLight continues to use Huawei equipment despite a ban issued earlier this year that applies to state contractors. Vermont’s Agency of Digital Services cited federal fears about Huawei equipment being used by the Chinese government for espionage.
FirstLight has been hired in recent months to carry Vermont’s E911 calls on its network, and provide connectivity to state data centers.
The heads of the state’s E911 Board and the Agency of Digital Services said they had been assured that Huawei equipment wasn’t being used to deliver services to the state. INDigital, the company managing the E911 system, has requested more information about FirstLight’s network.
Maura Mahoney, senior vice president of FirstLight, informed VTDigger’s business department on Wednesday that the company was cancelling its underwriting contract immediately. The company had made four monthly payments toward the $15,000 annual contract. VTDigger also contracts with FirstLight for internet at its Montpelier office.
Mahoney said it is not FirstLight’s practice “to cancel media contracts when it doesn’t like the reporting.”
“In fact, VTDigger had several stories recently regarding FirstLight that were less than flattering and no action was taken,” Mahoney said.
VTDigger recently reported on a spate of customer complaints against FirstLight that occurred when the company migrated customers and some of them waited on the phone for hours to get help accessing their accounts.
Mahoney said VTDigger’s reporting on Huawei equipment crossed the line.
“Rather than thoroughly investigating a story and thoroughly vetting your sources, we suspect that you were working an agenda which was to create an unwarranted sense of fear among the citizens of Vermont and to act as the instrument of a disgruntled competitor,” she said. “As a result of this shoddy, biased reporting, we felt that it was best that we not associate our brand with this type of reporting.”
FirstLight’s chief legal officer also wrote to VTDigger editor Anne Galloway Wednesday demanding that the news organization retract the story, claiming that “specific allegations in the article are false and based on the specious, inaccurate and unsubstantiated comments by a single disgruntled competitor.”
VTDigger sought an interview with FirstLight officials for a week, followed up with email questions and provided images of Huawei equipment FirstLight was using to actively process data. Mahoney said federal rules prevent the company from discussing its customers, then did not respond to follow-up emails.
Galloway said Friday that VTDigger stands by its reporting.
“FirstLight is clearly attempting to intimidate VTDigger by pulling ads and threatening legal action,” she said. “We made every attempt to get FirstLight’s perspective. When they refused to talk with us, we were obliged to publish without their point of view. That is never our preference.”
FirstLight claims that the Huawei gear photographed at “co-location” sites in Montpelier and Stowe, where telecommunication companies install network equipment like routers and switches, was in fact “decommissioned.”
At the co-location sites in central Vermont, a reporter observed the Huawei “multiplexers” — devices that redirect incoming data to outgoing channels — plugged into incoming and outgoing cables with the power on and green lights indicating that the machines were processing data.
In a response provided after the article was published, Jill Sandford, FirstLight’s chief legal officer, said “FirstLight does not have Huawei equipment active in our Vermont network and is in the process of removing any decommissioned Huawei equipment.”
In a later email, Sandford again declined an interview request about the Huawei equipment, accusing the reporter of being biased against the company. Mahoney declined a half dozen interview requests and did not respond to specific questions about the initial article.
FirstLight said it was particularly concerned about photographs of equipment installed in secure facilities, which were taken in recent weeks and published with the article.
“Sharing unauthorized, confidential equipment configurations for service providers of sensitive communications information is highly irregular, inappropriate and possibly illegal,” Sandford wrote. “It also creates a serious network security concern.”
Sandford said FirstLight reserved its legal rights as it investigates the matter and considers “appropriate action to protect the security, confidentiality and integrity our network.”
The question of Huawei gear in FirstLight’s networks was also at the center of a legal dispute the company had with Vermont Telephone Company last year.
VTel resisted an effort to interconnect — a routine agreement that makes it easier for customers to switch providers while keeping the same phone number — saying it was concerned about linking with a network using the Chinese equipment, because of security worries and the possibility of losing federal funding.
President Donald Trump has waffled recently on blacklisting Huawei in U.S. markets. But the Trump administration remains at the front of a global effort to curtail the Chinese company’s emergence as the leading manufacturer of 5G network technology.
VTel’s president, Michel Guite, was quoted in last week’s VTDigger article, saying that FirstLight was seeking to avoid the issue of Huawei in its networks because it would cost tens of millions of dollars to replace.
FirstLight was sold last year to Antin Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure-focused hedge fund with offices in Paris, London and Luxembourg.
In the years before that sale, when the company belonged to the New York hedge fund Oak Hill Capital Partners, it went on a buying spree of network operators in the Northeast. It now boasts 14,000 miles of network in six Northeastern states.
Sandford said in her email last week that the company would continue to expand its services in Vermont.
“It is unfortunate and a disservice to the citizens of Vermont that VTdigger has chosen to focus on creating unnecessary fear and concern related to an item that has been fully addressed,” she wrote.
“FirstLight has made and will continue to make substantial investments in the State of Vermont to provide a competitive, high quality and robust suite of fiber-based communications services for our Vermont customers.”
