A federal judge has cleared the way for Vermont’s ECFiber broadband network to transition to a new operator, issuing an order aimed at ensuring stability of service for its roughly 10,000 rural customers.

ECFiber and its current operator, Great Works Internet or GWI, have traded several legal blows over their contract in recent months. GWI filed a suit in March against ECFiber board chair F.X. Flinn, accusing him of spying on the company and attempting to poach its employees in a plot to replace it. ECFiber moved for a preliminary injunction in June, seeking to force GWI to comply with a transition policy it said the operator was resisting.

The Aug. 11 decision from Judge Mary Kay Lanthier dictated that GWI must comply with certain transitional measures, but also limited what the co

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