Today, Braintree Electric Light Department (BELD)—a nonprofit, publicly owned power utility and broadband internet provider—announced it has sold its internet business to Comcast. The sale will allow BELD’s approximately 2,500 internet and phone customers to transfer service to Comcast, which has served Braintree for 18 years and has among the fastest and most widely available Gig speed broadband service. The sales price is not being disclosed, and the deal will have no impact on BELD’s electric division. The transition will begin later this year.

“We are proud of our 20-year history as a local Internet Service Provider and sincerely thankful for our customers’ loyalty,” said Bill Bottiggi, BELD’s general manager. “Our top priority has always been our customers, and we continue to think of their best interests while adjusting to market conditions. After evaluating our options, we are confident the best decision is to connect our residential and business customers with Comcast’s best-in-class network, products, services and customer experience.”

Bottiggi said BELD recently conducted a study showing it would need to make a major, multi-million dollar investment in network infrastructure over the next few years to maintain quality of service. This cost would have required a significant increase in customer rates.

“The broadband market has always been competitive, and the pandemic added further uncertainty. This sale will ensure our internet customers can count on reliable, robust service over the long term while we uphold BELD’s responsibility to the Braintree taxpayer community,” said Bottiggi.