[T]he Senate Finance Committee postponed debate on a telecommunications bill Tuesday following a last-minute request from entities pushing to bring high-speed broadband to Orange and Windsor counties.
Irv Thomae, chairman of the board of ECFiber, begged Senate Finance Chairman Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, to pass a proposed amendment to the telecom bill that he said would help the company secure more loans, build more infrastructure and increase the region’s attractiveness to people with school-aged children.
Sens. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, and Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, proposed the amendment to H.117 Tuesday as a way to revive broadband bills that have been stuck on the wall in the House Commerce Committee since March. (H.117 has focused on adding a connectivity arm to the Department of Public Service.)
ECFiber is a nonprofit municipal entity made up of 24 towns that runs fiber-optic cable connection to homes and businesses in the east-central region of Vermont. The towns are part of an “interlocal contract,” but Thomae said a provision in the Mullin-MacDonald amendment to allow them to form a “telecommunications district” would help ECFiber attract investors.
Another part of the amendment would make it easier for ECFiber and other small companies to attach their cables to utility poles. The poles are owned by larger electric and landline phone companies, who effectively control entry into the utility market, because companies like ECFiber must go through a long application process to attach to the poles.
Anyone seeking to attach to a utility pole must fill out an application for each pole — there are 25 to 30 poles per mile. If the pole owner doesn’t respond within 60 to 90 days, the applicant has to appeal to the Public Service Board. The PSB then has 180 days to issue a decision.
Thomae said the process takes “an indeterminate length of time,” adding that some of ECFiber’s applications “have dragged on for as much as a year” while “there are no teeth in the PSB rules” to get permits for pole attachments.
Jim Porter, senior policy and telecommunications director for the Department of Public Service, said the department supports ECFiber’s proposals. Porter said the Legislature passed a law in 2011 to speed up the utility pole attachment process; the PSB never acted on it, and the law sunset in July 2014.
Sen. Claire Ayer, D-Addison, said, “Let’s tell them we mean it this time.”
Beth Fastiggi, state president for FairPoint Communications, said ECFiber’s proposal to streamline the utility pole attachment process is unnecessary.
“For the record, all of these are construction projects, and there are delays, and I don’t think that any delays are caused by any of the pole owners,” Fastiggi said. “They’re not caused by pole owners’ negligence or not wanting to do the projects. The assertion that we’re delaying the process or dragging our feet is just plain not true.”
Fastiggi said her company is tightly regulated by the Department of Public Service and the Public Service Board. She rejected the idea of a “telecommunications district” if the district meant that the ECFiber broadband entity would not be subject to the same regulations as the landline telephone company.
The third part of the Mullin-MacDonald amendment would allow the Vermont Economic Development Authority to give revolving loans to ECFiber to fund broadband buildout.
FairPoint would not be eligible for revolving loans under the proposed VEDA change because it is not a municipality or an entity under an interlocal contract. But the company is eligible to apply for cash broadband grants from the state’s Connectivity Fund and the national FCC.
Senate Finance decided to bring the Mullin-MacDonald amendment to Senate Government Operations to address the “telecommunications district” proposal. Mullin told Ashe that section is the most feasible option this year because it has very little opposition.
The committee is likely to strip the VEDA provision because of limited time and Thomae’s priorities. The change to the utility pole process is up in the air.
John Roy, treasurer of ECFiber, said Senate Finance’s amendment would “be huge,” but ECFiber will push forward whether the Legislature acts or not.
“Our whole history has been jumping one hurdle after another,” Roy said. “If we don’t get this, we’re just going to have to jump higher hurdles.”
