WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-State Wants FairPoint to Prove It's Living Up to Its License

State Wants FairPoint to Prove It's Living Up to Its License

    
    
Montpelier, Vermont -- August 10, 2009

     The Public Service Board took the first steps Monday in determining whether FairPoint was living up to its license.
     "Approximately a month ago, the department had filed a petition for FairPoint to show cause as to why their certificate of public good should not be revoked," said Jim Porter, an attorney with the state Public Service Dept. "We filed that petition based on the fact the service quality issues, and quite frankly, the financial viability of the company, just had not progressed at the rate that they should."
     FairPoint took over Verizon's landline phone service last year. Since then, the Public Service Department says calls from disgruntled customers have tripled .
     "We're hearing about billing errors that are ongoing for months at a time, consumers having a difficult time getting service installed," said Tamera Pariseau, the department's coordinator of consumer affairs and public information. "We're not seeing a decline in the number of complaints we're receiving. I'd say it's holding pretty steady for last few months, and in many instances, complaints that have been closed and then reopened, so it's been quite a process for us."
     FairPoint says its service is getting back to normal since the problems it had during the transition last winter.
     "We've made great progress since we transitioned from the Verizon systems to our new systems," spokeswoman Beth Fastiggi said. "At first we did have a very difficult time processing orders; now our orders are processing mostly on a normal level. We had difficult times with customers being able to reach us because the volumes were so high; those call volumes are normal now, our customers don't have to wait on hold inordinate amount of time to reach our customer service representatives."
     Fastiggi says the company continues to work improve its operations and its reputation.
     "This is a very important market to FairPoint," she said. "Vermont is a major part of our business and we need to be successful here."
     Regulators Monday accepted the state's petition, giving FairPoint a month to make its case.
     "If FairPoint cannot raise its service quality to an acceptable level, it's our opinion we've got to look at whether they should be operating the incumbent phone company here," Porter said.
     Regardless of how this petition progresses, both sides say customers will not lose their phone service -- that dial tone will continue to be there. Representatives of FairPoint and the Public Service Department will meet again before the Public Service Board on September 10th. Fairpoint expects it will respond to the state's petition in the form of written testimony, not witnesses called before the board.

Kate Duffy -- WCAX News