Date Posted
Many of you are probably aware that CWA and Frontier have conducted informational meetings in New Haven at Hamilton St., and at 310 Orange to educate our members on the newest threat to our jobs, and the future of Frontier in New Haven.
The Office of Consumer Council, (OCC), is a state agency appointed as a watchdog for customer complaints about utilities. The OCC now wants to split its’ responsibilities so it is also the Connecticut State Broadband Office which plans to install a new fiber optic network in the state beginning with the New Haven area for citizens to connect to the internet at 1 gigabyte speed. This is known as the CTgig Project
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The OCC contacted an Australian firm named Macquarie to lend the capital to the City of New Haven for this fiber optic network buildout, amounting to 220 million dollars, and the plan states that they need 100,000 customers to make this feasible. They propose to take 3 years to finish the new network before any services can be delivered.
CWA and Frontier are both opposed to this as our members have the training, the experience, and Frontier already has an existing network in place that just needs expansion. Frontier was already on pace to spend $450 million in the next 3 years to expand the network and to continue hiring. For this issue, we are on the same side working together maintain the network and our jobs. .
We have rolled this out in New Haven because this is the location of their first proposal. We want and need CWA residents in the city, and all towns and cities, to be prepared to contact their alders, mayors, or selectmen, and inform them that we as employees, residents, and voters are the correct choice to expand our network. These are our jobs, this is our career, and nobody can do it better.
