State OKs Stowe Cable sale

“All I can say is onwards and upwards,” Matthew Rogers, the chief financial officer for Bill Davis Associates, said last week

Jeremy Hoff, a Stackpole and French attorney representing Stowe Cable, didn’t want to jinx the sale — as with just about any state permit, there is a 30-day appeal period for this certificate of public good — but he said “there are definitely plans to make improvements.”

Rogers said the company plans on upgrading its infrastructure to “fiber all the way” for current and new customers, and get them “mouth-watering speed” they just can’t get with regular coaxial Internet lines. He said FairPoint Communications, the big name in Internet in town, is using “clunky old Verizon” equipment.

“I can’t see why we can’t give the tiny little town of Stowe a world-class system,” Rogers said. “The problem with bandwidth is it’s like health care. There’s an insatiable demand for it.”

The Public Service Board gave the company fairly high marks on most aspects of its business, although it did tell the company to clean up its billing practices. It noted the solid infrastructure has room to grow.

“The cable systems are in good condition and well maintained. They include a state-of-the-art and well-functioning cable-modem termination system and associated equipment,” the Public Service Board order reads. “The cable systems have relatively low numbers of subscribers per node, an indication of the network’s capability, ability to support additional services, and effective system management.”

The board pointed both to Davis’s local ties and his business acumen, particularly in his role as chairman (and owner, through Bill Davis Associates) of a cable company in Florida that has 25,000 subscribers. Stowe Cable has 800 customers, on both sides of Smugglers Notch. Davis’s assets are valued at more than $50 million, “diversified geographically and by market sector,” the board said.

Five companies into two

The deal will bring together five small companies that grew over the past 30 years, owned jointly by two partners who in recent years have sued each other over alleged misuse of company funds.

The assets of all five companies — Stowe Cablevision, Jeffersonville Cable TV, Stowe Access, Stowe VOIP and Rolan LLC — will be combined into two companies, all under the Stowe Cable Holdings umbrella (itself under Bill Davis’s even larger umbrella): Stowe Cable and Stowe Communications.

“The companies evolved organically to the point where they were separate companies, and the point is to consolidate them,” Hoff said.

The Public Service Board’s order requires the new company to fix up a handful of billing problems:

• Issues with the disconnection policy.

• A lack of correct contact information on customer bills.

• Improperly levied late fees.

• Inadequate time to dispute bills.

• Lack of notice on how changes in services affect customers’ rates.

Rogers said the company will soon also be able to take credit card payments over the web; now, customers have to mail in their payments, bring them to the office, or call them in.

Some Stowe residents hope the new owners will step up their game in a town that Comcast stays away from, and much of which relies on FairPoint or Sovernet for its Internet service.

When the Public Service Board met in Stowe in March, state Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, R-Stowe, said the town is, “quite frankly, underserved” when it comes to IT.

“This is a four-season community, and people expect better here; people deserve better here,” Scheuermann said.

Hoff said, then and now, that Davis and his holding company are willing to pump more money into the company. First, though, will come finalizing the sale and then getting to know the lay of the land, figuratively and geographically.

The Public Service Board agrees: With its commitment “to further improve the infrastructure of the existing systems, expand the number of residences and businesses served, and expand the services offered, and with its experience and resources, (Stowe Cable and Stowe Communications) should be able to continue serving customers at least to the same standard they have historically been served.”