Your recent editorial, "dirtroad.com" (BDN, July 31-Aug. 1), suggested that Maine's telecommunications infrastructure places Maine at a disadvantage in the information economy. This is false.

Maine's infrastructure is first rate, and the representations to the contrary made by iAdvance -- repeated in your editorial – show that iAdvance is out of touch with what is happening here.

Moreover, when an inaccurate and negative portrayal of our telecommunications capacity is published in a major statewide newspaper, Maine suffers: The people who make decisions about where to work and live may be discouraged from bringing their talents and resources to Maine. It is important to set the record straight.

The editorial, quoting the iAdvance representations, says that Mainers cannot travel the information highway because Maine does not have an Internet backbone hub. This is simply wrong. Maine has a major Internet backbone hub (and two smaller ones) in Portland, the other backbone hubs in Sanford, Biddeford, Brunswick and Bangor. These hubs serve a wide array of Maine Internet service providers, including MCI, AT&T, Great Works Internet, Cybertours, Lighthouse, Ctel Internet, Time Warner and many others. Mainers can reach those hubs, and hubs in other states, from virtually everywhere in Maine over high speed lines.

Not surprisingly, with these resources available to them, Mainers are traveling the information highway in greater numbers than ever, just as seamlessly and easily as our counterparts in Silicon Valley and New York. There is no evidence at all that the federal policies iAdvance complains about have in any way slowed the growth of Internet usage, or the development of telecommunications-intensive businesses, in Maine. On the contrary, the percentage of households in Maine connected to the Internet is well above the national average: 37 percent in Maine, compared to 30 percent nationwide. Virtually every person in Maine can reach an Internet provider by making a local call. Maine has the highest percentage of schools and libraries linked to the Internet in the United States. MBNA and L.L. Bean, businesses dependent on the very highest level of telecommunications technology and information access, thrive in Maine.

Portland has one of the highest levels of broadband subscription in the country, and was one of the first cities in the nation to have Time Warner's very high speed cable access ("Roadrunner" service) to the Internet. Bell Atlantic has recently committed to deploy "xDSL" -- broadband service using existing copper wires -- in many areas in Maine this year. Maine was the first state in New England to have all digital switching in its telephone network. Maine is the only state in the entire Bell Atlantic area (reaching south to Virginia and west to Pittsburgh) with a statewide ATM backbone in place for its schools. The picture for basic telephone services (the backbone for any participation in the information age) has never been better, with Maine ranking virtually at the top among all states in percentage of households with telephone service, and Maine now has in-state toll rates among the very lowest in the country.

iAdvance (which receives funding from Bell Atlantic) complains that Bell Atlantic and the other former Bell companies are barred from the "long distance" data markets; all this means, however, is that until Bell Atlantic satisfies the requirements laid down by Congress in the Telecommunications Act for opening its network to competition, customers cannot use Bell Atlantic facilities to reach hubs in other states. Internet service providers and their Maine subscribers are completely free to obtain their access to those out of state hubs from AT&T, Sprint, MCI-WorldCom or a host of other companies ready, willing and able to provide high speed connection.

Hardly a major imposition, especially when several hubs are already in place in Maine.

iAdvance may well be right that customers everywhere will be helped when all major telecommunications carriers, including the Bell companies, are allowed to participate fully in the growing data markets. As regulators, we recognize that barriers to full competition and aggressive investment should be removed as quickly as possible. It is unfortunate, however, that iAdvance has chosen to slander Maine's infrastructure to stir sympathy for the Bell companies’ regulatory plight. Maine's infrastructure is among the best in the world. We will continue to work to keep it that way.

Perhaps if iAdvance were to visit Maine -- or even talk to those of us who use our infrastructures everyday -- they would find the information highway well paved indeed, and not just with good intentions.