A lawsuit filed in March by the Maine-based Biddeford Internet Corp, also known as Great Works Internet (GWI), against regional internet service provider ECFiber, continues to move forward before Judge Mary Kay Lanthier of the U.S. District Court for Vermont in Rutland. The suit accuses F.X. Flinn of Quechee, the chair of ECFiber’s governing board, of trying to “poach” GWI’s business in the more than 30 central and southeastern Vermont communities it serves.
The East Central Vermont Telecommunications District (ECVTD), of which ECFiber is the trade name, operates as a Communications Union District (CUD) under Vermont law — one of nine regional CUDs in the state. CUDs, which function under the auspices of the Vermont Department of Public Service, are organizations of two or more towns that join together as a municipal entity to build communication infrastructure. In Vermont, CUDs are the primary tool for expanding broadband access via internet service providers (ISPs) into communities statewide, particularly in underserved rural areas. GWI is a Maine-based ISP that currently operates ECFiber under a contract that expires on Dec. 31. Locally, Barnard, Hartford, Pomfret, Reading, West Windsor, Windsor and Woodstock are among the communities served by ECFiber in the competitive ISP marketplace.
Concurrent with the ongoing legal battle being waged between GWI and representatives of the ECFiber CUD, both sides in the ongoing debate over the future of the regional ISP are also waging war in the court of public opinion, each trying to curry favor with current customers and potential ISP users alike. For its part, GWI has placed print advertisements headlined “Your Internet Service is at Risk” in regional media and has also started up a website, SaveVTinternet.com, to plead its case to continue running ECFiber beyond the end of the current operating contract on Dec. 31. ECFiber has countered the GWI arguments with talking points of its own, largely through media interviews and a Q&A primer on the lawsuit issues that can be found at ECFiber’s website at ecvtd.gov/lawsuit-faq.
Over the past two weeks, the Standard has conversed with ECFiber board chair Flinn and with GWI’s president for its northeast division, Tom Cecere, for point-counterpoint discussions of the key arguments put forward by each side in the ongoing conflict over the future of internet service in the ECFiber CUD. (Of note, Cecere formerly served as the CEO of ValleyNet during that ISP’s transition to GWI as the operating entity of ECFiber in 2022.)
For the full interview, please see our September 4 edition of the Vermont Standard.
