Our letter to the City Council and Mayor Bob Kiss.
We are a group of nine telecom and business professionals that has offered to help the City revive Burlington Telecom (BT). Our offer includes the payment of the outstanding interest payment currently past due to CitiCapital and to put into place a team of seasoned professionals, working on behalf of the citizens of Burlington, to oversee the process by which BT becomes the success we believe it can be.
Why?
BT is a extremely important and valuable asset for the future of Burlington. However, it is in a severe crisis that could destroy it. Collapse of BT would have huge and unacceptable consequences for the residents and businesses of Burlington, but also for Vermont as a whole. With Comcast aggressively raiding BT’s customers decisive action is needed—and soon!
This may be the last best chance to:
- preserve BT as a viable, locally-owned, non-profit, community network; and
- protect Burlington taxpayers from the losses that have already been incurred over the last few years.
We have stepped forward to offer the City help because we believe in:
- the need for a community-based Fiber network to underpin Burlington’s future economic, cultural, and social development;
- the need for vigorous competition to Comcast;
- the soundness of the BT’s network and its business model;
- the capacity for BT to recover—but only if it is put under the right new management and structure;
- the promise of BT and what it will do for the future of Burlington. BT has built a state of the art network that is in its infancy. While FairPoint is still using 100 year old technology and Comcast is using 40 year old technology. Rescuing BT is about control of our future.
We also believe that:
- the crisis is real, immediate and severe;
- no clear, concrete and satisfactory alternatives appear to be on the horizon;
- as a group, we have the interest, the skills, the commitment and the resources to take on and resolve this situation.
In short, if you are in a car driving along I-89 with a group of medical professional friends and you come across a severe accident that has just happened, what do you do? You stop the car and offer to help. That is the way we feel, and that is why we stepped forward in the case of BT.