Vermont’s publicly-owned telco Burlington Telecom (BT) has terminated a lease agreement with CitiCapital, according to a WPTZ report yesterday.
BT leased US$33m of equipment from CitiCapital in 2007. WPTZ reported BT lawyer Bill Ellis saying that BT was…
Vermont’s publicly-owned telco Burlington Telecom (BT) has terminated a lease agreement with CitiCapital, according to a WPTZ report yesterday.
BT leased US$33m of equipment from CitiCapital in 2007. WPTZ reported BT lawyer Bill Ellis saying that BT was not in default to CitiCapital, but that it had terminated its loan agreement with them.
He reportedly said that BT will now return the lease equipment to CitiCapital, and will then owe nothing further.
WPTZ reported that this equipment included 186 miles of installed fibre-optic line. Ellis reportedly said that BT would not dig up this buried cable, but would provide CitiCapital with the equivalent amount of new fibre-optic cable.
BT was created in 2007 as a municipal service to provide residents in Burlington, Vermont with TV, telephone and internet services over a fibre-optic network.
But the telco has faced financial difficulties in recent years.
In 2009, it informed the Vermont Public Service Board that it had used US$17m in city money since early 2008. BT’s failure to repay that loan was a violation of its state licence. This led to an audit of the business and, in early 2010, a criminal referral to the Vermont Attorney General and the FBI.
