Concerns in New England Rising over Verizon-FairPoint Deal

Public concerns over Verizon's pending sale of phone lines to tiny FairPoint Communications are increasing in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, where CWA and IBEW have been urging regulators to reject the deal as bad for consumers and workers.

In Maine, following the conclusion of public and regulatory hearings on the proposed sale, the state's Office of Public Advocate recommended that the deal not be approved unless it met a list of 23 conditions addressing many of the unions' concerns, including service quality, pricing, and the build out and availability of high-speed Internet. The state's public advocate also recommended that the deal be renegotiated to reduce FairPoint's debt, something that could cost Verizon more than $600 million.

Regulatory hearings begin in New Hampshire next week, and tough questioning is expected after a staff consultant with the state's Public Utility Commission also recommended against the deal unless the commission imposed 16 conditions similar to those proposed in Maine. Last week, the speaker of the house in New Hampshire urged that the deal be opposed unless those conditions were adopted.

This week, CWA urged that Vermont's Department of Public Service reject the sale as the best way to serve the public interest. The union recommended a series of conditions that should be imposed on the parties, should the state decide to go ahead and approve the deal.

CWA's message to regulators and the public is that FairPoint, a small company that will take on $1.7 billion in debt through this transaction, won't be able to maintain quality phone service, let alone provide high-speed Internet communications for northern New England.

CWA has asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the Verizon-FairPoint transaction, and that study is still underway.