FairPoint in Perspective
5/26/09 | 10 comments
editorial

FairPoint in Perspective


FairPoint Communications clearly has a lot of work to do to meet customer expectations, but it is worth remembering that its predecessor, Verizon, had little interest in retaining land line service in northern New England, let alone improving it. That doesn’t mean that regulators shouldn’t keep a close eye on FairPoint and ensure it meets the goals set out in its stabilization plan as well as its commitment to improve and expand broadband service.

The plan, which the company gave to regulators in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire in late March, came in response to problems that occurred during the transition from Verizon to FairPoint. A major problem during the early February transition was that customers couldn’t get through to service centers and had long waits before getting assistance. Many customers had trouble with the e-mail conversion. FairPoint pledged to hire additional help and have the problems resolved by June.

Shortly after the transition, FairPoint was receiving 85,000 calls a week at its service centers. That has now dropped to about 37,000 calls a week, slightly above the normal volume.

Still, customers have reported going weeks without Internet service. An inn in Camden said it lost $15,000 because of the outage. Others have been waiting weeks for telephone service.

In an area where there is little choice of phone service providers, forcing a business or residential customer to wait weeks before getting a phone or data line activated or fixed is bad business at best, dangerous at worst.

FairPoint should have a lot of motivation to fix these problems. The company has lost nearly 9 percent of its telephone customers in the last year. Some of this may be due to the migration to cell phones, but some of it is likely due to poor customer service. Lost customers mean lost revenue, something FairPoint can't and shouldn’t tolerate.

The company’s credit rating was downgraded earlier this month after FairPoint said it was hiring a financial adviser to explore a possible restructuring. Like others, the company also has had financial difficulties because of the national recession.

While FairPoint has many difficulties to overcome, it was not clear that Verizon would better serve customers in Maine. Verizon paid more $3 million in penalties since 2001 for service- related problems. Those penalties were for violations such as repair appointments not met and residential troubles not cleared within 24 hours.

On high-speed Internet access, despite the problems, FairPoint is ahead of schedule in improving the region’s broadband network, which will include more capacity to more places. This will especially benefit business and education customers.

The PUC must still ensure that FairPoint quickly puts the service problems behind it and meets its broadband commitment, but the company must be compared to what existed in Maine before the takeover, not what many wished existed.

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Comments
10 comments on this item
On 5/25/09 at 6:48 PM, chersully2000 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Who wrote this....a Fairpoint representative???!!

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On 5/25/09 at 7:47 PM, trimall wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

We operate 2 internet companies in downtown Bangor Maine and our Fairpoint Business DSL went down on Thursday 5/21 around 2 pm so we had to send employees home. When I called Fairpoint they had no idea why it was down and they said it should be fixed within 3 days and if its not to call them back. It was still down on Sunday 5/24 when I went to my office to check.

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On 5/25/09 at 8:52 PM, patom1 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

"The check is in the mail." "I'll still love you in the morning." "You will have great serivce from Fair Point."

It is time for the three states involved in this circus show to wake up and take the system over by eminent domain. I know that the government screws most everything up, but in this case, I don't think it could be much worse than what Fair Point is doing.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, who would love to change their address to Maine and work from home via computer. Unfortunately they are unable to purchase reliable service for their phone or internet. I wonder how much Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are looseing in taxes because of the lousy service that we are getting from the private sector. It seems that the private sector only wants to cherry pick in the higher density population areas. Are these companies not licensed to operate in the tri-state area? If so why are not our legislators demanding that they bring equal service to the whole of the population?

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On 5/25/09 at 9:20 PM, fredrogers wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Again the dirty little detail is maine has no choice but to hang on while fp declares bankruptcy and of course rids itself of the few senior verizon engineers still on the payroll who are making at least a tolerable situation.

Also public safety and municipal services; are they or are they not in jeopardy of major meltdown too ? I hope they have adequate wireless back-up.

But most likely Maine has no plan B and at the 11th hour will be forced to scramble to work with verizon wireless and other wireless carriers which was always the plan by verizon. More to come on this bumpy ride.

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On 5/26/09 at 7:04 AM, freedomfighter wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Trimall, don't you have Roadrunner service in Bangor? Time is money and nobody wants to wait for a slow connection. Verizon did not want to be in Maine and we wouldn't have gotten much better service from them. If anyone would have driven by the Verizon office in Presque Isle you would not have believed the shabby condition of that building. The outside was covered with rust and would have been an embarrassment to any other reputable company. Verizon was not going to invest in Maine so we can only hope that Fairpoint will.

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On 5/26/09 at 9:54 AM, rondesign wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

freedonfighter, believe it or not, much of downtown Bangor does not have roadrunner access. The say it is because they do not have room to run their cables underground.

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On 5/26/09 at 2:21 PM, David889327 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

FairPoint is now in the position to practically shut down what remains of Maine's economy. It appears that some regulatory agency did not perform adequate due-diligence before this deal went down.

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On 5/26/09 at 3:05 PM, trimall wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

freedomfighter, Cable service is not available in downtown Bangor. Our Fairpoint service is still down and we have no idea when it will be repaired. Ironically, I had to purchase a cellular card from Verizon (the company that sold the phone lines to Fairpoint) in order to keep our business running. The 3G service from Verizon Wireless is fast, but our monthly limit of 5 gigabytes will be used up in a few days.

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On 5/26/09 at 4:36 PM, mattecamp wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Maine is a g-d JOKE. I hate this State. I would leave but Wife says no. I might just leave her here.

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On 5/26/09 at 4:36 PM, mattecamp wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

What I mean is: I hate how this State is run. I love Maine- Hate Augusta.

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