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Stephen Whitaker: State Fails 10-Year Telecommunications Plan

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This commentary is by Stephen Whitaker of Montpilia. The author has been involved in planning, government transparency and accountability, access to public records, and more recently the resilience integration of utility networks for 30 years.

Vermont is finally newly adopted 10-year telecommunications planFor the first time since 2004, it is not compliant in almost every respect and is based on the false assumption that most business users and public security communications needs are “in pretty good shape”.

Thanks to Governor Scott, Matt Dunn / RISE, CTC Technology and Engineering, and the corrupt and incompetent public services sector for the resilience trajectory of the derailed public security communications with the swamp of broadband.

Non-planning undermines Vermont’s long-standing progress towards the key statutory goals of open access, competitive choice, and ubiquitous mobile wireless, and requires interim fixed wireless broadband, integrated planning, transparency, accountability, and 911. Ignore reliability / call delivery guarantees, storm resilience. Cost-effective Use of Fiber Assets in VELCO and Power Distribution Utilities — Need to Continue?

The lack of this plan suggests that telecommunications union districts are free to negotiate statutory goals and policies in support of “public-private partnerships” with commercial telecommunications carriers. How explicit is the illegality of this unplanned document?

Despite the statutory goal of building 100/100 Mbps fiber speed services for all E911 addresses in Vermont, the plan now offers 25/3 Mbps services with competitive and promising fibers. It does not include a strategy to reach all of the tens of thousands of existing cable exclusive addresses offered by. 2024.

The legislation that defines Vermont’s telecommunications goals and planning requirements specifically states that each goal is addressed in the plan. Departments, commissioners, state legislature supervisors, and governors simply ignore this fundamental and deadly flaw in so-called plans, effectively monopolizing cables in densely populated (profitable) service areas. Protected.

The legislation requires an “effective hearing process,” with zero attendance at both the beginning and end of the required hearing, and only a handful of attendees at other hearings. Best illustrated by. No printed copy of a document larger than 300 pages was made available for further investigation or a record of the hearing was made. The Public Access Community Media Center also needed to be involved and coordinated to ensure public participation. They were also ignored by the department and RISI.

Most of the informed, concrete and accurately written public comments are storm resilience, pole clutter, interim service until fiber is built, public security radio and microwave issues are less than equivalent. “Invisible from my house” wiped out by the department, claiming a lot

This is a surefire way to encourage future public participation.

The PSD / PUC and telecommunications committee (House Energy and Technology chaired by Tim Briglin and Senate Treasury chaired by Anne Cummings) has significantly abandoned its oversight obligations and has waived its oversight obligations. Cleaned up serious flaws in a crazy scramble. Blow $ 200 million on the uncompetitive internet and challenge CUD experiments in the absence of a unified strategy or plan.

This is all about active and passive fiber architectures, state-wide restoring design requirements, neutral hosted cellular infill strategies and lead agencies, competitive choices for consumers, and cost-effectiveness of existing infrastructure. Made by encouraging open without the necessary decisions of high usage prerequisites. -Create access rules, and existing fiber and pole inventories are ordered or edited by PUC.

This department has explicitly ignored the advice and formal requirements of the statutory Telecommunications and Connectivity Advisory Board. The specific obligation of the statutory telecommunications and connectivity advisory board is to advise members on telecommunications planning. The Board has requested that the plan include a table of specific links detailing the exact links between the statutory planning requirements and the planning section addressing those requirements. The plan adopted does not include the requested improvement. These certainly helped to highlight many of the flaws in the bread.

The governor and his direct staff remain deliberately unaware of these issues, instead ignoring legislation and deliberately undermining sound telecommunications plans for the benefit of the incumbent. It was postponed to the department with a history of 30 years.

This ostrich approach, even in the opposite view, is in direct conflict with the governor’s often-supported values ​​of listening to the other side, prioritizing the best ideas. Instead, the governor has chosen to continue to cover the administration’s incompetent team, no matter how incompetent, outlaw, taunt or deception, and wants to blame the opponent’s almost certain train wreck. maybe.

Scott’s politically compelling concept of holding a new tax and fee line is deceptive. This clever move is a true and much longer term of failed or incomplete planning, lost opportunities, and consequent substandard education, telemedicine, public participation, and reliable broadband-based economic development. Cover the wrong economy to hide costs. The result of a communication plan that has failed for decades.

This is a penalty, not a savings.

In our lifetime, we will probably never re-use federal support of this scale for building broadband. Broadband, electrical and communications resilience, 911 call guarantees, and emergency preparedness are too important for politics and rewarding monopolies and campaign donors while endangering Vermonters’ lives and property. is. It undermines “trust and trust in the government,” or future prosperity, especially when the governor and legislature are betting this once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunity to do it right.

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