Zambuto Calls for Issuance of Cease and Desist Order to RCN

Councillor-at-Large Anthony Zambuto has asked for the issuance of a cease and desist order to RCN for what he termed the cable TV service provider’s “non-responsiveness” to the City Council’s request for an appearance before the Council.

“I don’t have exact proof but the stories are they’re leaving wires hanging from poles in the city,” said Zambuto.

Zambuto made the motion for the cease and desist order during a conference with Dan Cameron of National Grid and Stan Usovicz of Verizon about companies’ work involving double poles, trench work, and wiring.

While National Grid and Verizon received praise for their efforts and their accessibility to the Council, RCN drew the ire of the Council, especially Zambuto.

“The bottom line is we meet with Verizon, Comcast, and National Grid once a month, and we’ve invited RCN and they don’t participate,” said Zambuto. “So therefore RCN doesn’t answer any of our concerns. The other companies answer our requests for updates on double poles or wiring problems or trenches that aren’t filled. I’m finally frustrated with RCN.

“They came in to this community and everybody was excited that we were going to have competition for cable television service and that’s all good –  but not if we get a non-responsive player – and that’s what we have right now, a non-responsive player. I’m angry and I decided that I’ve had enough of it.”

Zambuto said that RCN may resolve the issues of wires hanging from the poles and prove that the  claims are not true, “but right now the evidence is that they’re doing stuff and they’re not coming here to answer for it.”

 Council President Patrick Keefe also weighed in on Zambuto’s motion that was approved by the Council, joining Zambuto with his own comments that were critical of RCN.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to be so aggressive with RCN as we like having them in the community to offer residents an option and create healthy competition,” said Keefe. “However, RCN has been the furthest from being a good community partner and has shown really poor business judgment in building a reputable brand to the consumers of Revere.” Efforts to reach RCN officials Tuesday for a comment were unsuccessful.