By Rep. Laura Sibilia
It’s crucial to ensure that every Vermonter, regardless of their location, has reliable communication services. Today, I want to point to a significant development impacting Consolidated Communications, a company that plays a vital role in our state’s communication infrastructure including landline phone service.
Consolidated Communications, the recipient of millions in state and federal public funds, is undergoing a transformation from a public company to a private one. This shift requires them to secure a Certificate of Public Good from the Vermont Public Utility Commission (PUC). This process is essential to ensure that as they evolve, the interests of Vermonters are protected, particularly those in rural areas who rely on landline services.
While Vermont has made commendable progress in expanding broadband access to every address, the reality is that this mission will take several more years to complete. In the interim, a significant portion of our population, especially in rural regions, continues to depend on their phone lines. The impending conversion of Consolidated Communications adds a layer of concern for these Vermonters.
A crucial step in this process is the upcoming public proceeding, a hearing organized by the PUC, where a joint petition from Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc., Consolidated Communications of Northland Company, and Condor Holdings LLC will be scrutinized. This hearing, governed by Vermont state laws, specifically Sections 107, 109, and 311 of Title 30 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated (V.S.A.), is designed to evaluate the project’s compliance with utility regulations and procedures.
Scheduled for March 7, 2024, starting at 7:00 P.M. via GoToMeeting videoconference, this hearing provides a platform for the companies involved to present their plans and to answer public questions. A presentation by the Vermont Department of Public Service at 6:30 P.M. will help outline the project.
I urge Vermonters, particularly those in rural areas heavily reliant on landline services, to actively engage in this process. The PUC allows public participation through attending the hearing, submitting comments, or intervening as formal parties to the case. You can sign up at EPUC to offer your insights, comments and concerns.
Please consider helping elderly neighbors and family members who may be directly impacted by this change. Encourage them to share their experiences with service quality, their dependence on the phone line, and any challenges faced in obtaining reliable communication services. Let’s work together to make sure all Vermonters, especially those in rural areas, have their voices heard in this process, ensuring a smooth transition for our communication services.
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Categories: Commentary, Communication
“Landline” services no longer exist in Vermont. Copper lines are gone gone gone.
ONLY fiber optics connected to the internet – otherwise known as VOIP or VOICE OVER INTERNET (like SKype or ZOOM) are available no matter where you live if you want to opt out of dangerous wifi router emissions and stay healthy.
Thus…”Landlines” do not exist.
They did until we decided to insert 3 or 4 telecomm middle men in the middle and scoop up baucoup bucks to sell you… reinvented landlines…that aren’t landlines at all…
Sibilia is getting really good at making things seem real when they are not. Comcast does not offer the option of opting out of wifi for ethernet, and most devices no longer have ethernet ports to bypass the router completely. This is planned… we have no choice anymore.
I am a old fossil who remembers that we felt safe on a dark and stormy night because those copper wires operated electricity or no electricity. You can still some on backroads. But during the plandemci, the buildout of ‘fake landlines’ was put in place…using antennae and modems and routers… and radiation levels have increasee 150 THOUSAND times all around us all over the globe as a result…along with more satellites… and we are thinking its a virus.
Its RADIATION.
Look up the symptoms, then lets do VOIP instead of copper lines…
Please, just the facts.
FYI – I still have a copper wire POTS (plain old telephone service) at my house with a wall mounted rotary phone in the kitchen. In other words, land lines *do* exist.
This is not to say VOIP phones (voice over internet protocol) aren’t necessary either. I have both, because the cell coverage at my house is limited. My choice.
What I’m saying is: let the market determine what’s best.
Ms. Sibilia is a fearmongering socialist. Every problem she cites is not only hypothetical, she assumes that a free market will be more deleterious than her centralized government schemes.
“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” ― Milton Friedman
If anyone is worried about the potential for corruption in a private company, think about the actual corruption in our centralized government. Corrupt people gravitate to a centralized government because it gives them the cover of a collective. They’re never held personally accountable for their poor performance because, to them, ‘we’re all in this together’.
At what point did Consolidated decree that service would reduced, quality impacted or that voice service would be terminated? sibilia is indeed once again stirring up attention for herself under the guise of a concerned legislator- nothing more than self-aggrandizement. For those that choose not to use Consolidated’s services- good news- government has come to your rescue- utilizing taxpayer dollars thru ARPA, local broadband co-ops are stringing thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable. rep. ms. siblila crowed about her work with H.360- a 150 million dollar bill to fund these co-ops. In fact, rep. ms. sibilia was appointed to the Vermont Community Broadband Board in July of 2021.
So, what exactly is rep. ms. sibilia saying with this election-year press release?
Shilling for her broadband co-ops- or just starting trouble where it doesn’t exist?
Methinks a bit of both.
If you worry about the radiation from cell towers I got some bad news for you. Most am or FM radio stations pump out thousands or even ten thousands of watts of radiation. A nice hot woodstove got far more radiation than a cell tower not to mention that malignant nuclear reactor in the sky we call the sun.
This is actually a United Nations and World Economic Forum agenda, as the WEF is very concerned that rural America will be left out of the digital transformation. The road map for this transformation ends with digital bank digital currency and social credit scores, which will track and limit purchases based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Land line service doesn’t accommodate the agenda.
During COVID-19, the optic fiber communication companies were in Addison County putting in cable. I asked the man why this was being done in a vacation destination/community with very few full-time residents. He responded by saying because the state wants it done.
Here is one World Economic Forum document on this agenda. There are many more.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/here-s-how-work-together-bridge-digital-divide-davos2023/
Thanks for the heads up Rep. Sibilia. My reps have been remiss in notifying my community.
Three paragraphs Michael Shultz’s testimony to the PUC (12/29/23) are significant and show intent to retire POTS (plain old telephone service) allowed by the FCC in their order 19-72A1 (issued August 2, 2019).
Schultz claims: “Therefore, the Transaction will be seamless to customers, as they 16 will not experience any immediate changes in services or rates, terms, and conditions of 17 service. Any future changes will be executed with careful planning and implementation 18 in the normal course of business operations.”
He tries to make it look good while continuing POTS: “For example, 11 CCHI plans to expand 1 Gbps (gigabit-per-second) broadband coverage in its current 12 network topography and improve operational efficiency across its approximately 59,000 13 fiber route miles and two million fiber strand miles, including in Vermont. At the same 14 time, CCHI will continue to maintain its existing copper network and service quality 15 commitments.
Basically he says eliminating POTS is inevitable: “More broadly, the Transaction will also give CCHI additional flexibility to 16 overcome the unique economic headwinds facing the telecommunications sector as it 17 transforms from legacy copper-based TDM networks to fiber-based IP networks.”
It probably won’t be immediate but transitioning for folks without computers or cell phones will be impossible. Using VoIP on a traditional phone needs an adapter, and software and microphone for a computer.
i still have a rotary phone on my wall ,and rabbit ears on my tel//// lie//// vision/// will they take those still working units away from me///
From my cold dead hands !
What difference does it make if you get your computer, your telephone, or your television, “service” via landline, broadband, satellite, or mental telepathy if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it ! It just ain’t gettin any cheaper !
And as “concerned” legislators dissect service providers and utilities, requiring subsidized service and racking up legal cost in front of the PSB, you get to pay for that too. Along with the service charges, taxes and “fees” socialist legislators like sibilia demand from providers.
Man I’m a senior citizen and my phone bill which is call around vt and internet is almost 170 a month . I can’t afford it any more gotta figure out something else . I live my land line . But you wifi keeps jumping gain ,almost 70 for internet and rest phone now we pay a heck of a lot more more taxes on this what a joke people can’t afford it