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Permalink Reply by johnf on July 11, 2010 at 10:18am

This is that letter:

Dear Editor: I am writing as a resident of Loudoun County, living in the Southern Walk at Broadlands community. I am also on the Board of Directors of the Southern Walk at Broadlands HOA, but today I am speaking for myself.

Our HOA is currently locked in to a 65-year contract with Openband to provide video, telephone, and Internet service to all homes in the community. Our community includes residents who are out of work, homes where these services have been turned off due to non-payment, and homes that are in foreclosure and vacant. The HOA must pay Openband for these homes, whether service has been cut off or whether anyone is even living there to receive the services.

Openband was marketed to potential homebuyers as a cutting-edge, next-generation service that would give homeowners top-notch services beyond anything else on the market. Now, just a few years into the contract, we are left with sub-par services which are far behind what is available to other residents of Loudoun County from competitive service providers. Openband has no incentive to improve their service-we are a guaranteed revenue stream for them for the next 65 years.

The HOA pays Openband more than $140/month for every home (vacant or not) in the community. This is for base-level service, it does not include HD channels, long-distance service, a static IP address, or even call-waiting. Many homeowners have subscribed to satellite service despite having to make payments to both Openband and their satellite provider.

The HOA, the utility easements in the neighborhood, and the contract with Openband are constructed in such a way that potential competitors are locked out of the neighborhood, and residents have no negotiating power to improve pricing or service offerings.

The Southern Walk HOA exists only to collect payments from homeowners for Openband. It entered into the contract with Openband, partially owned by the declarant, while the HOA was declarant controlled, before a single home was built. It does not provide any normal HOA services, such as common area maintenance, covenants enforcement, or snow removal. These are provided by a separate HOA. Although the HOA is now controlled by the homeowners, it is stuck with the existing contract and no power to change it.

At $140/month over 65 years for 1,100 homes, Openband stands to receive over $120 million in payments from homeowners in Southern Walk, and the homeowners have absolutely no say in the matter. This is not competitive or fair in any way.

I urge the Board of Supervisors and the county to take action to restore competition to Loudoun County, and give residents of OpenBand communities the ability to negotiate and choose among several providers for the best deal for their cable, telephone, and Internet services.

Douglas Granzow, Southern Walk

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Permalink Reply by johnf on July 11, 2010 at 10:27am

I would encourage Lansdowne residents to also write letters to papers and emails to county officials.

There has been some assertions on here that we all signed up for Openband when we bought our homes, and therefore should be happy. This is simply not true. While we were all aware of Openband, the full terms of the contract were not disclosed to homebuyers. This includes substantive terms in that contract that can affect home prices.

The nature of the way those contracts were constructed and ultimately disclosed is clearly potential fraud on the part of the original parties who arranged those contracts and actually presents a current unaddressed liability to our current HOA.

It must be made as clear as possible to all parties that the status quo is unacceptable.

Furthermore, it has been asserted that residents are "happy" with Openband. While that is clearly debatable and no evidence exists for such an assertion, it is also not relevant.

Which resident would like to post here that they are in FAVOR of maintaining a 75 year exclusive contract with Openband even if they are currently happy with the existing service?

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Permalink Reply by james on July 12, 2010 at 5:02pm

Not I.

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