Burlington Telecom Tour

Well, the folks at Verizon and Adelphia/Comcast might not be pleased to hear it, but Burlington Telecom — the city's municipally owned fiber to the home network — is now a reality. I took a tour of the new BT headquarters at 200 Church Street on Monday with Richard Donnelly, Tim Nulty, and Joe Wool. Joe, apparently, is one of the original owners of the first cable TV station in Burlington, which he says he started in the late 1970s.  He recently contacted Burlington Telecom and expressed his approval for their project, so they invited him to stop by for a tour.

The new BT facility is pretty exciting. It's still under construction, and you can still see white hard hats on shelves in some of the offices. And the secure downstairs room that contains the network components is still mostly empty. But the place is definitely buzzing with activity. Tim and Richard showed off all the fancy equipment, some of which is currently being used to provide internet access to about 40 beta testers. They say they'll have both phone and cable TV service up and running by the end of the year. A big grand opening is planned for sometime in January.

I had a good time talking with Joe, who seemed a little overwhelmed by all these gizmos. At one point he stopped, surveyed the whole room, and said, amazed, "I was in this business once upon a time!" Tim, another telecom industry vet, gestured at a two foot-tall telephone switch box. "When I got in this business 35 years ago, this equipment would have taken up the whole building," he said.

The photos are of Richard, Joe, and Tim, the network hub and there's a shot of Joe staring at a tiny triple play fiber cable, capable of carrying unimaginable amounts of data.