Help line
FairPoint Communications’ help line for residential customer service is 866-984-2001 and for businesses is 866-984-3001. Those with e-mail problems can call 800-240-5019 and those with e-mail mitigation problems should call 888-740-0506. Information about the switchover also is available at myfairpoint.net.
Two Houlton women — one a new mother and another who is desperately searching for a job — are beyond frustrated with FairPoint Communications because the phone lines they ordered more than a month ago are still not connected.
“It’s crazy,” Linda Ash said this week.
Ash called FairPoint to get a phone line set up at her apartment in mid-January and was given a phone number that has yet to work.
“I’ve already given that number out to people,” she said. “I’m just waiting for it to be turned on.”
Tanya Pasquarelli said she constantly worries about her daughter and 4-month-old granddaughter, who live in an apartment without a phone. Her daughter called FairPoint on Jan. 31 and ordered a phone but it still is not connected.
“It is a safety issue for her not to have phone service with a young child,” said Pasquarelli, who has taken the lead on dealing with FairPoint for her daughter, who is a working single mother.
“This week I spent probably nine hours on hold all [told] between FairPoint and the PUC,” she said, adding she has filed two complaints with the Maine Public Utilities Commission so far.
FairPoint officials admit there have been problems tied to the telecommunications company’s switchover of phone and Internet service from Verizon Communications in northern New England that occurred at the end of January.
“We are working through a backlog of [landline] orders, and it is a result of the transition,” FairPoint spokesman Jeff Nevins said Thursday. “We did tell the customers in the initial stages that there would be delays in new orders that came in. That is the case.
“It’s going to be a matter of weeks before we get back to the point where we’re back to working as usual,” he added.
How many customers are backlogged is a number Nevins declined to release.
PUC spokesman Fred Bever said Friday that the commission has received 32 complaints since Jan. 23 concerning landlines, and has issued FairPoint a warning.
“Commission staff told FairPoint this week that FairPoint must improve its performance in processing the backlog,” he said.
FairPoint informed the PUC that no new orders would be processed between Jan. 23 and Feb. 9 because of the switchover, so a backlog was expected, Bever said.
There could be penalties for FairPoint if it fails to meet certain criteria established in the sales agreement, and the PUC will act if the company does not meet them, he said.
“I encourage people who are having any problems of any nature, that is not e-mail-related, to contact our consumer assistance division,” Bever said.
FairPoint has approximately 1.6 million customers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
The backlog of landline customers awaiting service is something that “is happening in all three states,” said Nevins. He added that even though two Houlton customers are awaiting service, “I don’t know of any clusters. It’s not just Houlton or Aroostook County. The backlog is in all areas.”
FairPoint has switched from leased Verizon equipment to FairPoint-owned equipment, the final step in the $2.3 billion sale. The switchover involved shutting down Verizon’s 600 computer systems that served northern New England and transferring the data to FairPoint’s new network of 60 computer systems.
While the weeklong transition was happening, “our systems were down,” Nevins said.
“That has created this backlog of orders,” he said. “We’re working on them one at a time depending on when they” were placed. “The ones that came in first are the ones we’re trying to do first.
“In terms of exact timing, I can’t tell,” Nevins said. “It’s going to take us a period of time to get back to normal operations.”
In addition to a backlog of people waiting for landlines, thousands of customers had problems updating their e-mail accounts after the switch, as well as other related problems. Approximately 285,000 of FairPoint’s customers have e-mail accounts.
With the system change also came new equipment for employees to use, which is another part of the e-mail and landline problem, Nevins said.
“They’re learning the new system,” he said. “We’re still on that learning curve, but we’re getting better. We’re working around things and coming up with solutions.”
As customer service reps become more comfortable with the new system, orders will be filled faster, Nevins said. “We appreciate people’s patience and understand their frustration,” he added. “We are working through it.”
It’s not just residents who are having problems. The Bangor Daily News ordered a landline for its office at the State House in Augusta more than a month ago and is still waiting.
For Ash and Pasquarelli, frustration is not a strong enough word to describe their feelings. They say they only want what they ordered.
Ash said she has “been spending two to three hours a days on [a neighbor’s] phone” trying to set up her own phone line.
“I need the phone so I can get work,” she said. “I have applications all over town and I need a phone. This is ridiculous.”
Pasquarelli’s daughter and granddaughter lived with her until the end of January, and “I wouldn’t have let her move out had I known,” she added. “I’m at my wit’s end.”
A FairPoint representative called Pasquarelli on Friday to let her daughter know that the company would be connecting her line that day, but the family was disappointed yet again, she said.
“For the second time she took time off to go meet FairPoint and they didn’t show,” said Pasquarelli, with obvious disappointment in her voice.
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