The business section of last week’s Boston Globe described Verizon’s announced plans for expanding its Fiber Optic Service (FiOS) to additional towns in Massachusetts. FiOS would offer at least some competition to monopolist Charter for our communications (TV, Internet, phone) dollars. Without FiOS, many people in Harvard are beyond the range of Verizon’s DSL, so Charter is the only realistic Internet game in town, as it is for most of us for television.
Once again, Verizon has left Harvard out of its FiOS plans, although nearby towns such as Stow, Westford, and Northborough are included among new FiOS license applications, and nearby Acton, Boxborough, and Sudbury already have FiOS service. The following URL is the same article as in the Globe, minus the four-color map showing towns with FiOS: www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/02/verizon_details.html
The United States at large is lagging way behind other developed countries in price and speed of broadband Internet service, given the hold that the telecom giants have on the Federal Communications Commission and state houses, including Massachusetts. But we in Harvard are not going to solve that problem by ourselves. What we do need to do is launch a concerted effort to get a FiOS rollout here in Harvard, so we can once again be on the same competitive level as our neighboring towns. With competition from FiOS, Harvard can at least expect some improvement in service or better pricing from Charter, or simply better communications pricing and service from Verizon.
Once again, you can let people in the State House know what you think. You can tell town officials what you think. If you do not do so, it is unlikely that our lot will get any better here in Harvard, and we will all remain in the broadband and communications backwaters.
- Pamela.Resor@state.ma.us
- Rep.JamesEldridge@Hou.State.MA.US
- Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@Hou.State.MA.US
- Therese.Murray@state.ma.us
- Michael.W.Morrissey@state.ma.us
- tbragan@harvard.ma.us
DiMasi is speaker of the house; Murray is Senate president; Morrisey chairs the joint House-Senate committee on telecommunications, utilities, and energy. Tim Bragan is our town administrator. Governor Deval Patrick has no exposed e-mail address, only a form that can be filled out at the following URL: www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3utilities&sid=Agov3&U=Agov3_contact_us
Let them know.
Ben Myers
Westcott Road
