AUGUSTA, Maine — For the third time this year, the Maine Public Utilities Commission has chosen FairPoint Communications to replace the state’s emergency 911 system with an upgraded, Internet-based system that can accept emergency calls from a range of devices.
The commission’s choice of FairPoint for the $32 million contract, handed down Tuesday, comes after the commission’s two previous awards to FairPoint this year were appealed by losing bidders and overturned by state panels that heard the appeals. The commission’s latest award to FairPoint came just 11 days after the last state appeals panel threw out the second FairPoint award.
“It’s been a long and somewhat painful process,” said PUC Chairman Thomas Welch. “We’re hoping we’re coming to the end of it. We’re hoping we’ve gotten to the point where we can move forward and get in what I think will be a really good service for the people of Maine.”
The appeals panel that threw out the second FairPoint award overturned it following five days of hearings this fall where attorneys for Colorado-based Intrado and Lewiston-based Oxford Networks — two communications companies that also submitted bids for the so-called NextGen 911 contract — accused the PUC of violating the law and the terms of its own request for bids when the agency chose FairPoint.
In a 12-page decision issued Nov. 9, the three-member appeals panel didn’t accept all the arguments made by Intrado and Oxford Networks, but the panel concluded that the PUC failed to consider one key requirement in evaluating the bids: the ability for each bidder to meet the state’s desired timeline for the project.
FairPoint bid $32.4 million for the project while Intrado bid $27.8 million and Oxford bid $24.9 million.
“When we got the decision of the appeal board, it was actually quite narrow,” Welch said.
Welch said the PUC decided to reconvene its review team and rescore the existing nine proposals it had received from companies last year and adjust the scores after taking into account the timeline information.
“When it was rescored, there were a couple of little differences that came into play, but none of them that made a difference in the ultimate award,” Welch said. “In light of what the appeals board said about what we had done, basically affirming 95 percent of the decision we had made about scoring, this made the most sense to us.”
Losing bidders have until Dec. 5 to appeal the PUC’s latest decision.
But it’s hard to have faith that another appeal will result in a fair process, said Dan Grossman, director of public safety solutions for Carousel Industries of Exeter, R.I., another losing bidder.
“We’re exploring options, trying to figure out how we escalate this beyond the PUC,” Grossman said. “The governor needs to be aware of this because this is life safety, public safety and emergency services.”
The PUC was wrong to take year-old proposals and rescore them just days after the last award was thrown out, rather than start fresh by putting out a request for new bids, he said. The PUC also didn’t inform bidders of its plan to rescore their existing proposals.
“So much time has passed, it’s questionable whose bids are even still valid,” he said. “More advantageous technology is available and not being considered almost a year and a half later.”
Oxford Networks’ executive vice president of operations, Mike Tompkins, said the company plans to request documents from the PUC regarding the latest FairPoint award before deciding whether to appeal again. “After two successful appeals Oxford remains committed to pursuing a fair and equitable process,” Tompkins said in a statement.
“We’re troubled by the MPUC’s quick action to rescore the RFP and award the contract to FairPoint for a third time,” said Intrado’s senior vice president for government and regulatory affairs, Craig Donaldson. “In their Nov. 9, 2012, decision, the appeal panel invalidated the MPUC’s previous award, and to our knowledge, the basis for that decision has not been addressed in this third award.”
FairPoint spokesman Jeff Nevins said the company was pleased to be selected again. “It’s an important step toward providing the state of Maine with an E911 system that’s the next generation, that has more capability and functionality than the current one,” he said.
The company that ultimately secures the NextGen 911 contract will be charged with upgrading the state’s emergency 911 system to an Internet-based system that allows dispatchers to accept and pinpoint the location of emergency notifications that come by phone, text message, notification services such as OnStar, and other devices.
The state’s current 911 system can accept only phone calls. The state contract for that system, which is held by FairPoint, expires in October 2013.
The PUC initially sought to have the NextGen 911 system in place by August 2013, but that timeline has become unrealistic, said Welch, the PUC chairman.
“The appeals process has probably introduced something on order of a year’s delay,” he said. “We’ll try to make it as little as possible.”
How is it that the State of Maine repeatedly demonstrates the inability to be able to fairly, accurately, and timely with RFP’s? This reeks of cronyism and incompetence – similar to the fiasco with Maine Natural Gas vs. Summit, but screwed up by entirely different people! “Let’s put these out for bid so it looks like we’re being fair, but then change the scoring until the ‘right bidder’ wins…” Disgusting…
SOP for the GOP.
Fairpoint?, I would not let Fairpoint wind my watch.
Have a battery watch there Pattenpond?
The PUC has spoken.
Business as usual.
Does anyone think the PUC , or the insurance board, really
cares a rats rearend about anyone else beneath them??
Face it, the MPUC and Fairpoint sleep in the same bed
You are absolutely correct. The MPUC needs to be investigated because there appears to be some shenanigans going on with their members and FairPoint from the very start by allowing the sale of Verizon to FairPoint Communications. FairPoint was an unreliable company with major service/financial problems before the sale and yet the MPUC still approved it without regard to the potential hardships and poor service they subjected to the people of Maine. It would appear that the MPUC flipped a coin when making their decision and the Maine landline telephone subscribers ended up being the losers. After putting up with FairPoint’s unreliable DSL service for a little over a year, I had enough aggravation and switched over to Time Warner Cable which was a great improvement over FairPoint. Investing any more money (e.g., $32.4 million) in any upgrades to be performed by FairPoint would be a dire mistake and a disservice to the residents of Maine. And knowing what we know now about FairPoint it could be considered criminal in nature.
Yeah I ditched FairPoint, for phone and internet, they never could fix a hum I had on the line, and my DSL connection was always down so I canceled it, now they try holding me liable for a termination fee after I documented good details about emails, when I called and complained, when a tech was out etc. I went to the PUC and complained of an unfair billing practice, the PUC told me to go away, they don’t handle DSL< so I went back and told them it is not the DSL, it is the unfair billing practice and they can look into it and take those same complaints, they "looked into it" and determined FairPoint was right, to charge me 6 more months of service that I never used, after I canceled,and a termination fee, that is when I knew FairPoint and the MPUC are more then just friends.
The state will be sorry, and so will anyone that tries to use the 911 system…
Yeah they got in trouble a couple years ago for messing up 911
Why we keep calling it a “public” utilities commission is beyond me. It has nothing to do with the public at all. If you send them a complaint about one of the utilities, you are blown off with a couple of excuses. Bangor (Canadian) Hydro has rate hikes every year and the PUC whips them right through. All the utilities in the state including worthless cable companies can push right through the PUC without any questions asked.
That’s a bad idea choosing Fairpoint
FairPoint service stinks to high heaven. By allowing them to monopolize service in this state, the PUC is aiding and abetting poor service which negatively impacts the citizens of this state. The abject refusal to comply with laws and court rulings is what I believe is part of the reason Maine is depressed. It’s ridiculous.
Why is it that there are two bids beyond Fairpoint that are 4.6 and 7.5 million dollars less and there are questions if Fairpoint can deliver the system on time, even with bidding considerably higher? What vested interest do some of the members of the PUC have in Fairpoint? Sounds like the other companies could have donated their services and still lost the bid. What a sham.
I believe it is legal to indirectly BRIBE the Maine PUC.. They do not have to disclose ouside income until the step down from that post.
get rid of fairpoint they are a lost cause
Yeah we ditched them for cable… much faster
FairPoint bid $32.4 million for the project while Intrado bid $27.8 million and Oxford bid $24.9 million.” More than 30% more costly than the low bid .Now new technology would allow for an even greater savings.
Anyone still doubt the worthlessness of our MPUC?
THE Maine PUC had no choice in the matter. VERIZON LEFT MAINE and thirteen (13) other states for the PROFIT.
” In January 2007, Verizon announced the spinoff of wireline businesses in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont to FairPoint Communications, Inc. This transaction closed on March 31, 2008.
On May 13, 2009, Verizon announced the spinoff of wireline businesses in Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin, and in portions of California bordering Arizona, Nevada and Oregon — to Frontier Communications Corp. ”
Maine is a huge rural state. Maintaining the roads, providing electricity and, yes, maintaing the power and cable lines for Internet and landline telephone service is a huge job. Millions of miles.
Erecting towers to enable Internet & cell phone service is also a huge job.
Don’t blame the PUC, CMP, Bangor Hydro or FairPoint for their efforts to provide critical services.
It would appear to me that after all this, an audit of the members of the PUC should be justified, at this point. It is starting to make no sense other than someone is profiting, making such a quick decision after the former one is dismissed, seems out of the norm. Yes, the Governor should order an investigation as it is a lot of tax payer money.
Wow. Bad decision again. Doubling down on a loser, again. The PUC is clearly not looking out for Mainers. Hey “dbogey”: The PUC did have the power to prevent Verizon from leaving. You write that there was nothing the PUC could do about the sale to Fairpoint, by Verizon. Verizon would have been forced to spread FIOS, the direct competitor to incumbent cable tv companies, thus dramatically lowering the price of Time Warner’s services, through competition. It happens everywhere Fios is introduced. With a simple vote, the PUC could have compelled Verizon to stay. Verizon could not have bled red ink forever. They would have had to account to it’s shareholders and make a profit through Fios. Also…..which company is more likely to provide healthy competition to Time Warner, Comcast, et all, Verizon or Fairpoint? Verizon’s market cap at the time was about 100 Billion. Now Time Warner is free to run roughshod over it’s Maine customers.
By constantly rewarding the worst company for the job, the PUC continuously does Maine a disservice. Again and again. Wake up Maine, the PUC does not promote competition and savings and the best companies for Maine. The PUC is most definitely in bed with “Failpoint” and have failed us again. New acronym: Fairpoint Utilities Commission.
We’re talking MILLIONS of dollars difference in the bids. Fairpoint better be planning nothing short of the electronics/communications capabilities of the Starship Enterprise here.
No way taxpayers should tolerate the higher bid, especially given the winning bidder.