Burlington's high-speed telecommunications network is up and humming and the city expects to begin signing up local businesses.

Forty to 50 businesses, Mayor Peter Clavelle said at a Thursday news conference, are poised to take advantage of what he calls the "last mile" connection -- the fiber-optic system the city has built to connect with "major carrier" fiber systems that don't extend into the city.

Burlington, marking the next step in what Clavelle calls its telecommunication "revolution," filed its tariff listing with Vermont's Public Service Board. The tariff sets out the cost of connections and rates available to city businesses. It will take effect Jan. 12 unless the Public Service Board files an objection.

The network, 17 miles of fiber-optic cable, connects city offices and schools across the city to the same computerized files, and phone connections on the system are being completed, said Brendan Keleher, the city's chief administrative.

The new city phone network, Clavelle said, will save the city money on its Verizon contract -- money that will help finance the new telecom network.

Clavelle said the new fiber-optic network, installed over the last two years at a cost of $2.6 million, will ultimately change the way the city does its own business and improve residents' access to government data such as property records and the status of permit applications.

That house-to-City Hall connection remains a vision. In 1996, the city took a long look at creating a citywide fiber-optic network, but found that cost-prohibitive.

The scaled-back version, with main fiber optics running along Pine and Main streets, North Avenue and Colchester Avenue, has linked 38 city offices and schools.

Tim Nulty, the city's telecom director, called the new network "a backbone" that, at present, isn't much use to many small businesses, which might not need the enlarged data capacity possible through the fiber optics.

Larger businesses physically close to the net, however, are interested in the connection, Clavelle said -- both for the improved access to the Internet and for the relatively low cost of a connection.

Such business connections will be cost-free to taxpayers, he said, with the city recovering the cost of running a fiber line to a business from the monthly fees the business pays.

The capacity will become an "economic development tool" for the city, he said, by giving businesses more Internet capacity and by allowing the city to attract new businesses that require such connections.

"We've built the highway," Keleher said, lapsing into metaphor to describe the new network, "and now we'll be building the driveways."

Contact John Briggs at 660-1863 or jbriggs@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com