STONINGTON, Maine — An Internet service provider is scrambling to fix faulty equipment in Blue Hill that’s causing days-long disconnections for residents and business owners in Stonington, some of whom claim the outages have cost their companies thousands of dollars.
The outages, which last from a few minutes to two days, began this spring, according to Stonington residents and FairPoint spokesman Jeff Nevins. There was a reported five-day blackout in July.
Outages don’t just keep residents and vacationers from checking their emails and watching Netflix; they also render useless credit card machines, preventing businesses from accepting plastic, which ultimately hurts the bottom line.
“We’ve structured our business around the Internet,” said Doug Johnson, owner of Green Tree Communications, a public relations company. “We use cloud computing, so when it goes down, we’ve got nothing.”
Town Manager Kathleen Billings-Pezaris said she’s fielded multiple calls from residents complaining about Internet and phone service interruptions, and she’s been in talks with FairPoint. Still, she says, it’s unacceptable for businesses to be cut off.
“That’s a way of life now, all the commerce [is] transmitted that way,” she said Thursday. “It’s a real tough situation when we don’t have access to the rest of the world.”
DSL broadband travels across the same twisted copper wires that transmit telephone communications. The network includes central offices, which feed out to remote terminals and, ultimately, to homes and businesses.
Stonington and Deer Isle have their own central offices, Nevins said, but all FairPoint communications from the island communities ultimately must pass through Blue Hill, where a bad coaxial cable is likely causing the service interruptions.
“We know there’s an issue there, and we’re working on it,” he said. “Right now, we’re not definitely sure exactly what the problem is, but we’re doing diagnostic work.”
Nevins said that while the problem in Blue Hill isn’t helping, the increase in bandwidth demands is probably also a contributing factor, effectively overloading the circuits. He said the rise of streaming Internet video services such as Hulu and Netflix are a lot to handle without upgrading the system.
A good metaphor for understanding Internet traffic is the interstate highway, with each central office as a lane of traffic and each user as a car, Nevins explained. Bigger cars and fewer lanes mean stop-and-go traffic. Stonington is sometimes stopped.
“Sometimes, if you have four lanes of traffic going to three lanes, you’re not gonna have the speed,” Nevins said. “And with people watching video, it’s like all the traffic is double-wide trailers. They take up a lot of space.”
Nevins also said FairPoint was working to increase bandwidth through systemic upgrades in Bangor, Winter Harbor, Jonesport and Eddington. That — plus fixing whatever issue is causing snarls in Blue Hill — should provide some relief to Stonington, he said.
While Stoningtonians will be pleased to know a fix is on the way, they’re upset at how long it’s taken. Many said they’d been made to sit through pointless diagnostic tests every time they’d called to complain about an outage. They say its taken FairPoint far too long to realize there’s a systemic problem.
Some people are considering switching to Time Warner Cable for their broadband needs. Billings-Pezaris said she already had, and Hugh Reynolds, owner of Green Head Lobster, said he might change providers too.
Reynolds was without Internet for five of the past 25 days and said the outages “cripple the business.”
Green Head Lobster relies on the Internet to print shipping manifests, invoices and other communications necessary to ship lobster domestically and overseas. Reynolds said that during outages, missed orders likely cost his company thousands of dollars.
In Maine, the Internet is not a regulated utility, so the Public Utility Commission doesn’t handle complaints such as those coming out of Stonington. But the Attorney General’s office does handle consumer complaints and offers mediation.
The AG has taken two complaints against FairPoint in the past year, said spokeswoman Brenda Kielty. One of those was unresolved, and the other is currently in mediation. Kielty couldn’t say whether the complaints were about FairPoint’s DSL service, but noted that complaints about its telephone lines would go to the PUC.
Johnson, the public relations business owner, said he’d been in touch with the Attorney General’s office and was urging other Stonington residents to do the same.
“I really don’t want to make trouble for FairPoint, and it doesn’t serve Maine well to create the impression that we’re living in some third-world Internet system,” he said. “But there’s a company there, selling me a service, that clearly has a problem.”
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
FairPoint is almost run by the mob. They came to my place of work to fix a DSL line. When they were done they had disconnected several other lines in attempts to get the fix. Then the company had to pay FairPoint to return via work orders to reconnect the lines they had unplugged!
fairpoint my dear fairpoint. it never stops and the excuses and they get away with it. other choices is people can go wireless broadband to verizon wiressless or us cellular broadband as well as time warner
My Fairpoint DSL service goes down frequently and the few times I’ve complained I get a runaround. The speedtest.net system rates my service at F to F-. Though they said the system’s overloaded and are working on upgradeing they can’t say when.
Does anybody know if this 3 ring binder network will help improve services?
The ring will provide a redundant system which will provide for greater service. The problem is if the physical plant is in place to do accomplish this…. cabling from central office to central office to central office, if not could take awhile to upgrade. I would say their trying to upgrade to all fiber optic network to have a more stable system for everyone.
The central offices would be upgraded and you would have much faster services if the Maine PUC would not force the phone company into placing services out in the middle of nowhere for 5 people. They are regulated to spend thousands of dollars to provide dsl to a handful of people. This money could have been used to upgrade the central offices instead to serve a larger amount of customers. Recently with their NGN upgrades people can get up to 30 megs down and these people live out in the boonies. So before you go complaining about the phone company think about the unfair way they are regulated. The cable companies are not regulated to extend to these people and they sell phone and internet as well. In the end instead of serving the customers the right way the phone company has to provide services at a loss. Regulate everyone or no one as this is what will be the end of the phone company with these practices.
The 3-Ring Binder project is complete.
This is a company who takes your money and does not provide the product time and time again. For instance, I live in the Bangor area which is a huge area for their benefits, they do not have the coverage for the area. Yet they take our money for shoddey services. I am so glad I am on the line for the new high speed internet, I will ditch them as soon as I can.
People of Stonington should contact Premium Choice Broad Band, they currently service the area. Local Bangor Company! Just saying!
It is very frustrating for us in Deer Isle/Stonington. It hasn’t been just recently, it has been going on for much, much longer. You can forget trying to be on the internet from 4:30 in the afternoon to around 8 or 9 at night. You either get booted off or you can’t connect at all! You try to go to the grocery store in Deer Isle and you want to be sure to have cash on hand because you can’t use the credit card machine. It is one excuse after another with Fairpoint. I pay them too much money every month for limited internet access. We all should receive a credit on our statements for their incompetence!
The central offices would be upgraded and you would have much faster services if the Maine PUC would not force the phone company into placing services out in the middle of nowhere for 5 people. They are regulated to spend thousands of dollars to provide dsl to a handful of people. This money could have been used to upgrade the central offices instead to serve a larger amount of customers. Recently with their NGN upgrades people can get up to 30 megs down and these people live out in the boonies. So before you go complaining about the phone company think about the unfair way they are regulated. The cable companies are not regulated to extend to these people and they sell phone and internet as well. In the end instead of serving the customers the right way the phone company has to provide services at a loss. Regulate everyone or no one as this is what will be the end of the phone company with these practices.
We aren’t out in the boonies and we do have more than just 5 people on the island. We have over 3,000 year ’round residents not including the thousands we see from May to late October. You can double that number during these times. I find it unfair that we are discrimated against because we are rural and not in the city. We have the same equal right to have proper internet service through our phone company without having to switch to cable/phone companies – which btw, they do come down this way and they don’t think we are too far out in the boonies. Most of us prefer to have a regular phone versus digital phone. The power goes out frequently down here and with having cable, you can’t call out or receive calls.
Cable internet over DSL any day……. Thats if you can get cable…..
I agree Time Warner’s 30mbps down leaves FairPoints 7mbps in the dust!
The central offices would be upgraded and you would have much faster services if the Maine PUC would not force the phone company into placing services out in the middle of nowhere for 5 people. They are regulated to spend thousands of dollars to provide dsl to a handful of people. This money could have been used to upgrade the central offices instead to serve a larger amount of customers. Recently with their NGN upgrades people can get up to 30 megs down and these people live out in the boonies. So before you go complaining about the phone company think about the unfair way they are regulated. The cable companies are not regulated to extend to these people and they sell phone and internet as well. In the end instead of serving the customers the right way the phone company has to provide services at a loss. Regulate everyone or no one as this is what will be the end of the phone company with these practices.
Maybe you should think about posting something different for each post you make. This copying and pasting is ridiculous – we get what you are saying adn have seen you other posts!
Fairpoint has had outages elsewhere in Maine. Whatever the issues, you would think they would have a good understanding of how to resolve them by now.
We cancelled Fairpoint at my home and my office several months ago. These problems aren’t anything new. Time Warner has worked out very well for us with our high-speed and phone at the office and the bundle package of phone, Internet and cable. And only one bill to make out every month.
FairPoint DSL Stinks and super slow! Glad we switched to Time Warner
I worked for FailPoint for years. I left the company just prior to the political back patting buyout of Verizon. They have ALWAYS had these issues. It’s not new. They have been given State and Federal funds to make the upgrades they are claiming are expensive and slow, and approximately 0% of which have actually taken place.
They are a complete failure as a company. Every time I run into former coworkers I hear the same stories of customers coming to their business offices and threatening to call law enforcement if they don’t get refunds for weeks or even MONTHS without promised services. They are driving people who need good, affordable, stable service over the cliff!
I left after fielding a customer who I was told was being threatening, and finding out it was a long time friend of the family. After hearing her ordeal, I finally decided it was time to move on. My personal morals and pride in my family far outweighed a career with a company that seems hell bent on causing as much chaos and suffering as possible.
They also don’t hesitate to disconnect your services if you are one month late! I would switch to cable for my phone service if I could use the line when the power was out – that’s the only thing that is holding me back from switching.
Joy,
I am on your side trust me. I am not saying your in the boonies I am saying there are other locations that FP has been required to spend money on to provide new DSL because they are mandated too. This means they have no money left to upgrade existing infrastructures that supply DSL to large areas or existing central offices like your location. Imagine spending 60k on a site and having 5-20 customers paying $19 a month. How long to get that money back? The cable companies are not forced to provide that service and they place their money on highly populated areas. The phone company is not what it used to be. 15 years ago people had phone service and now with cell phones and cable companies providing phones they do not turn a profit like they used too if at all. Why do you think ATT and Verizon are not in contract with their union employees? Its because they can’t afford to pay them steep salarys and great benefits like they used too. The only other utility regulated is power and guess what everyone needs power but not everyone needs dial tone phone service with all the cell phone coverage. I just think people should look at the entire picture. Imagine you owned a business and was told you need to have the ability to provide your service to everyone even thou not everyone will buy it. Right now Fairpoint is spending millions in Vermont to provide 90% DSL to the entire state and this after spending millions in Maine to give 87% availability. Guess what happens you have to spend it or face severe fines. The problem is customers like yourself and the residence on the island are put on the back burner for upgrades. FP has to take care of things that will cost them fines instead of costing them customers. The Maine PUC regulates the phone company and if you can understand this than you know where the blame lies.
The company has improved quite abit over the last year. Yes there were some issues but they have been fixed. Like other companies the business model has changed quite abit and next year they will be in better shape. They were denied federal/state money by the way. The ConnectME money is given to their smaller competitors to provide remote DSL sites. Fairpoint can’t ask for the money if there are other wireless, cable or telephone companies in that location. Imagine having to give up your telephone lines to a competitor and then being told the numbers your competitor has don’t count toward the DSL coverage area mandated by the PUC. So as a taxpayer you pay taxes to connectme funds. These funds go to a small time DSL provider who charges say $50 a month for DSL out in the middle on nowhere. Now you are required to place your equipment beside these guys and compete. You charge $20 a month for a faster service. That little provider goes out of business. Your tax dollars are down the drain and FP will take years and years to collect their investment. I say count those numbers and let the small business take care of these people but don’t mandate the phone company to place service there.
Where I live in central maine the dsl was terrible. WAS. After numerous attempts to get the problem corrected, and still running at 25 percent of the advertised upload download speed I said enough. I came across a advet in the local paper for GWI. Speed is what they advertize and have in state phone service, same prices as Fairpoint. Oh Yeh, we are in that 3 ring binder. Give them a call ask if your in that
Fairpoint didnt have any issues taking these peoples money So they are paying for a terrible ISP who has a track record of overselling bandwith knowing their equipment is junk