WINDHAM – Residents and town officials are irate about a decision by cable provider Adelphia to scuttle plans to bring high-speed Internet access to Windham.

In a letter last month to town officials, Adelphia said it intended to upgrade the cable system but subsequent-ly determined that such a move was not economically feasible.

Adelphia filed last year for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after federal officials began investigating founder John J. Rigas. Town Manager Tony Plante said he was sympathetic to the company’s financial problems.

But Plante said townspeople have waited far too long for Adelphia to deliver on its promise to rebuild the cable system to accommodate the high-speed service.

Plante says lack of powerful Internet bandwidth has hindered Windham’s ability to attract businesses that rely on quick and easy access to information. All neighboring communities – Raymond, Gray, Cumberland, Falmouth, Westbrook, Gorham and Standish – have high-speed cable Internet access.

Officials at Adelphia originally planned to complete the cable upgrade in 2002, but had difficulty finding a location for a new fiber-optic hub because of town zoning regulations.

By the time a location was found, the company declared bankruptcy, halting upgrade projects for several months in 2002. Company officials then told Plante the upgrade would take place in 2003.

Adelphia’s franchise agreement with Windham states that it will upgrade the system by 2006 “if expenditures required in connection therewith do not endanger the economic viability of the network.”

Mike Edgecomb, a spokesman, said the company cannot afford the $4.5 million project because banks now require the business to recover all upgrade expenditures in five years.

In order to break even in that amount of time, the company would have to charge a monthly fee of $37.50 to at least 2,000 subscribers for the duration. Adelphia has 4,000 cable television customers in Windham.

The $37.50 rate would be $2.55 higher than the rate charged by competitor Verizon, which now offers digital subscriber line, or DSL, high-speed Internet access to some Windham residents and has plans to expand the service over the next several months.