FairPoint Communications Inc. now has cleared all the regulatory hurdles required to take possession of Verizon Communication Inc.’s wireline assets in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. The company got the green light from regulators in New Hampshire Feb. 25, shortly after it got the okay from the Vermont Public Service Board.
That means the stage is set for the rural LEC to take possession of the RBOC’s 1.5 million access lines in the three states. The telcos announced the $2.7 billion arrangement in January of 2007, but before closing the deal they had to get the blessings of the FCC and three state PUCs.
The service providers also have had to contend with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) unions, which shortly after the deal was announced, launched a campaign to stop the sale. The unions’ concern is that jobs will be lost or adversely affected should FairPoint — whose financial resources are dinky in comparison to Verizon’s and whose strategy as a telco consolidator points to a likely path of downsizing — take ownership of the RBOC assets. However, FairPoint has said all along that it will honor employee contracts, says Rose Cummings, vice president of corporate communications at the RLEC.
The deal also has raised the question as to whether FairPoint has the wherewithal to deliver acceptable customer service to individuals and businesses in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont and to bring the networks in the three states into the broadband age. After all, Verizon has spent the last several years hawking the promise of its FTTH FiOS plan. But other than “a bit of fiber in southern New Hampshire,” Verizon spokesman John Bonomo says sub-scribers in the three states haven’t had the opportunity to realize the promise of FiOS. Instead, the approximately 1.5 million access lines in the three states include about 180,000 DSL accounts, he says, while the rest remain legacy TDM-based technology for the time being.
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