The news that the Maine State Legislature and the Office of the Public Advocate are on the verge of caving to FairPoint’s scheme to renege on obligatory landline service is troubling. The deal on the table will permit FairPoint to deny at will new landline service and raise rates in about two dozen communities, with potentially more to come.
But allowing FairPoint to escape its responsibilities as a “provider of last resort” will disproportionately affect Maine’s elderly and the poor. To wit:
1. Landlines are reliable, an important quality for the elderly and the poor. Cell towers can be affected by power outages, and Internet service — which is being touted as a rational “last resort” — doesn’t work at all in a power outage. If the cellphone isn’t charged, it also is useless in an outage. Corded phones offer the only operational service in a power outage and have zero impact on the consumer’s electricity bill.
2. Unlike cellphones and devices that access the Internet, landline phones are inexpensive and largely indestructible. They don’t have to be updated or upgraded, which can incur additional cost, not to mention a steep learning curve, as with the alternatives. The learning and update/upgrade/replace aspects are challenges for the elderly and the poor.
3. Cellphones are more difficult for the elderly to use. They use unique protocols that must be learned — and then remembered (Do I dial 1 or not? How do I get to my contacts? How do I retrieve a voice message?). The elderly often can’t hear well on cellphones, even when using the speaker option, and the tiny buttons are difficult to see and press for aged eyes and fingers. Internet devices can be even more complicated and frustrating.
4. Maine’s elderly and the poor needing the most help aren’t just in rural Maine. Many of them live in the very towns and cities FairPoint is targeting as part of this legislation.
5. As FairPoint is granted town exclusions, make no mistake, it will raise rates in those towns. The elderly who have difficulty using cellphones and Internet devices will be paying higher rates to maintain their landline service, and they could lose that service entirely if they move. The poor, some of whom are in rental residences, won’t be able to afford landline service at all, forcing them to rely entirely on unregulated cellphone and Internet services to communicate with anyone farther than shouting distance.
FairPoint wasn’t forced to buy Verizon: It chose to purchase a public utility in the state of Maine. The two words “public” and “utility” convey all they need to about the role of telephone service in Maine. “Profitability,” “price flexibility” and “competition” are secondary in the context of a public utility’s role.
But here’s the most outrageous aspect of this. As it ducks its public utility responsibilities, FairPoint will be rewarded by the federal government: It’s getting $79.8 million to expand its broadband network while it allows the telephone infrastructure in Maine to decay further. All of which is to say that the elderly and the poor, who, make no mistake, are paying into our fine system will be funding the loss of their and our phone service.
A public conversation is necessary before the state Legislature, the Maine Public Utilities Commission and the Office of the Public Advocate throw under the bus Mainers who need the most help.
Deborah Oliver of Camden has been a publishing professional for more than 30 years.