Lessons Learned from the Muni Broadband Failure in Braintree, MA

The Braintree Electric Light Department (BELD) was founded in 1891 after voters approved a municipal electric plant, making Braintree one of the first towns in Massachusetts with public power. Over the decades, BELD expanded by adding customers, improving technology, increasing generation capacity, building new power plants, and offering services beyond electricity.

BELD launched a broadband system in the late 1990s under the name BELD.net, building a hybrid-fiber coaxial network that offered residents cable TV, high-speed internet, phone service, and later features like HDTV and video-on-demand. For years, it provided a locally-run alternative to private providers. However, the system eventually became financially unsustainable and BELD discontinued its cable TV service in 2019. The system would have required multimillion-dollar upgrades, which would have resulted in steep rate hikes for customers since the service is self-supporting. General Manager William Bottiggi cited rising costs, market competition, and pandemic uncertainty as key factors in shutting down its cable TV system.

Within the same year, BELD’s Electric division transferred approximately $3.6 million – nearly equivalent to an entire year’s broadband revenue – to the Broadband division to sustain its operations. In December 2021, BELD sold its remaining broadband and internet-phone business to Comcast, ending its run as a community-owned cable provider and impacting about 2,500 customers. BELD will continue to provide electric service.

In sum, BELD’s broadband system struggled to compete with private ISPs due to rising infrastructure and programming costs, a declining customer base, and the need for continual technological upgrades, all of which required investments beyond what the municipal utility could sustain on its own.

Seth Nguyen is a 3L at New York Law School.