Consolidated Communications opposes Vermont net-neutrality bill, warns reporting could slow fiber rollout

Consolidated Communications told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday that a proposed consumer-protection and net-neutrality bill would duplicate existing oversight and could slow broadband deployment.

Scott Brooks, a Consolidated representative, told the committee the company opposes H.11 and related provisions because many of the bill’s proposed requirements are already covered by state law or company practice. "Consolidated feels that the majority of the issues that proposed bill addresses is already cared for by other laws or statutes already in the books that we adhere to," Brooks said during his testimony.

The company outlined its ongoing investment in fiber across Vermont and explained why it favors limited additional state reporting. "The bill proposes a number of things related to data collection, net neutrality, and [a] host of prohibited practice," Brooks said. He warned the committee that new regulatory reporting obligations would divert time and money from construction crews and other work to build fiber to unserved locations.

Why it matters

Committee members heard the testimony while weighing H.11’s mix of consumer protections, data-collection requirements and net-neutrality provisions. Broadband providers, state consumer advocates and the attorney general’s office have offered differing views to the committee on whether additional statutory obligations are necessary, and whether the Department of Public Service (DPS) or the Attorney General is the correct enforcement point.

What Consolidated told the committee

Brooks summarized Consolidated’s recent work in Vermont: the company said it has passed about 60,000 homes in the state, built nearly 4,000 fiber miles and spent roughly $160 million in capital in the state to expand fiber service. He said the company now offers a 100/100 Mbps fiber tier at $25 for the first year and $45 thereafter, and that the company is improving customer service with two-hour appointment windows and more proactive texting to customers.

Brooks also described the company’s ownership change and capital plan: Consolidated was taken private by Searchlight (a private investment firm), which Brooks said accelerated capital available for fiber builds. He told the committee that private investment led Consolidated to increase its planned capital spending for Vermont once the acquisition cleared state and federal approvals.

Consumer protections and enforcement

Brooks said many of the consumer protections H.11 seeks to create are already handled through existing authorities and the Department of Public Service’s Consumer Affairs and Public Information division. He told legislators the company works with the DPS and pointed to consumer complaint categories the DPS already fields: no dial tone, missed appointments, billing disputes and porting problems when customers move numbers between providers.

Brooks emphasized that porting a phone number can be a multi‑week process: "It takes, like, two weeks. It's a two week process to for everybody to get verification," he said, adding that customers sometimes expect a faster transfer than the process allows.

Net neutrality, throttling and technology differences

A major thread of the exchange concerned whether net neutrality rules are necessary for fiber networks. Brooks told the committee that, on fiber networks, the kinds of throttling concerns often discussed for legacy systems are less likely to occur: "With fiber, there's no need to throttle ... you have from our central office or our remote to your house is a... specific [fiber] run just for you," he said. He added later, after a question about paid prioritization, "From what I know, we don't do that."

Brooks and several committee members discussed differences between copper, coax and fiber networks. Consolidated explained that legacy copper and DSL services are more distance‑sensitive and can suffer severe congestion under heavy demand; those physical limits once made traffic management necessary in some places. Brooks told the committee that fiber backhaul and direct fiber home runs reduce the technical need to implement throttling for traffic management.

Company concerns about new rules

Brooks repeatedly told legislators the company’s concern was the operational cost of additional reporting and statutory compliance. "We can focus on our core business, which is building fiber and not re having reports ... This is just gonna take time away from that and dollars away from that because we're gonna be reporting more," he said. Committee members asked whether some of the bill’s consumer‑protection elements could be adapted or streamlined; Brooks invited follow‑up conversations on language and said Consolidated would be open to negotiating clarified wording.

Other testimony referenced

Brooks noted that the Attorney General's office — represented to the committee by Priscilla (Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs, Vermont Attorney General's Office) — had testified with concerns about H.11’s unclear scope. He also cited Sean Brown (Deputy Secretary, Agency of Administration), who told the committee that state contracting already requires net‑neutrality certifications from vendors that contract with the state.

What the committee heard in questions

Committee members pressed Brooks on two lines of inquiry: how consumers would know if they were being throttled, and whether statutory requirements would protect future customers if ownership or business practices change. Brooks said throttling would be harder to detect on copper and coax than on fiber and that Consolidated currently does not intentionally throttle traffic. On the broader durability question — whether statutory protections are warranted to guard against potential future owners with different practices — Brooks said the company preferred to avoid duplicative reporting and would rather have a single authoritative enforcement channel (for example, DPS) than multiple new statutorily mandated reporting burdens.

Next steps

Legislators did not vote or take formal action at the hearing. Committee members said they will continue to hear testimony and consider whether H.11’s consumer‑protection pieces should be amended, whether parts of the bill are duplicative of DPS or AG authority, and whether a streamlined reporting mechanism could address both public‑interest and industry concerns.