Three different start-up companies are pursuing plans to radically expand the Island’s broadband connections, and in the process dramatically improve the Island’s cell phone, Internet and cable television service.

OpenCape Corp, based in West Barnstable, is planning a wireless network with 350 miles of fiber-optic cable connecting more than 60 anchor institutions: hospitals, schools, municipalities and research institutions where direct connections to the network will be built.

Okay, so maybe what the residents of Cuttyhunk were doing in order to get their high-speed Internet service was not strictly legal, but goodness, it was clever. It showed, they will tell you, the sort of inventiveness that made America great.

But Comcast doesn’t see it that way. To the giant telecommunications company, what the Cuttyhunkers did was theft, pure and simple. And so they have pulled the plug on the islanders, casting them back into the dark ages, online-communications-wise.

The view from the Tashmoo overlook, one of the great vistas of Martha’s Vineyard, has been restored, after the owners of a number of large trees finally bowed to pressure from the town of Tisbury and allowed the chainsaws in yesterday.

The removal of several of the largest trees, whose growth was gradually obliterating the view across Lake Tashmoo and Vineyard Sound, may end years of dispute between the town and Thomas and Ginny Payette of Tashmoo Farm.

Against the strong objections of the chairman of the finance advisory committee, and one of its own members, the Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday voted to adopt a $24.5 million budget for next year, approving several budget overrides and putting salary increases for town and school employees back into the budget at the last minute.