carbonpenguin

I'm a volunteer with the Keep BT Local campaign, which is a consumer co-op bidding on the Burlington, Vermont municipal telecom that is being privatized following a legal settlement.

The process is ongoing, but the biggest challenge we're running into is access to friendly capital. The City definitely views the extractive bidders who are coming to the table w/ debt-free cash as more legitimate than our patched together mix of a community investment raise and double-digit interest debt.

Our region's co-op capital ecosystem is more robust than most, as we have the Cooperative Fund of New England (CFNE), but CFNE still only has ~$25MM in assets and the largest loan they've ever made is $750k, while this sort of project is in the $10-20MM range.

So, both for our initiative and for other folks looking to pursue a co-op ISP in their communities, where can we find the sort of capital that can make it happen?

Glad to hear your decision to not go the IP route. Do you have plans to formalize any sort of organizational structure?

I'm involved in an attempt to mutualize our fiber-based municipal telecom in my hometown. Are you talking about that sort of telecom, or is the aim more at the wireless market?

Technically we are a conversion, not a start-up. Any insights into the capital question?

When you first created the Facebook event, the location of the event was listed as "Occupy Wall Street." How important do you think the Occupy movement (which was peaking in October/November 2011) was to the success of Bank Transfer Day?