YOUR COMMENTS

fairpoint screwed me big time for 14 days.we lost everything until wmur and the puc stepped in to help me.if verizon knew this was a losing money battle,how can fairpoint think that they can do better,just try calling or email them,they will be gone in a couple of years if they keep losing customers."what a train wreck"
- dennis r soucy, concord nh

Fairpoint needs leadership and experience. These are manageable problems. This never need happen to anyone.
- Barbara Kemp, Barrington Hills, Illinois

There you go! You did not heed the warnings that Fairpoint has no interest in it's customers and was not a viable replacement for Verizon. Now you want to bi***? Fairpoint is the saddest excuse of a public utility and our liberals freely let them in.
I will give the CEO my suggestion: "get out of dodge!"
- Thomas, Manchester

"FairPoint is at least interested and engaged in improving New Hampshire's infrastructure and offering new technologies and new services to the entire state."
- Graham Chynoweth, Manchester

Now there's a scary thought. Fairpoint is going to manage new technologies when they already admit to not knowing how to run the old ones.
- Dave Biglow, Manchester, Nh

Mark P. This whole fiasco is the result of government intervention at its worst. Verizon took advantage of an obscure ruling called "The Reverse Morris Trust."
The NHPUC then staged useless "hearings" on the subject at who knows what cost to the taxpayers. Business, after business after business said "No!" this will affect our ability to compete with other states for years to come. The only NH PUC member to oppose the sale was a Craig Benson appointee...why, because he was the only PUC member with a telecom background, knew how to read a balance sheet and knew that the invocation of an obscure ruling to allow a debt-ridden pretend company (the CEO of FairPoint has no telecom background) to take over the infrastructure of a vibrant economy like NH's was about as anti-capitalist as it gets.
- Cathy, Derry

Sandy from Thornton
You are wrong about Verizon not having another buyer. Century Tel and Citizens Communications had shown interest in buying the landlines of Northern New England. Verizon picked Fairpoint because they were small enough for Verizon to qualify for a tax write off called the Reverse Morris Trust. If the NH PUC had said no to the sale Verizon would have to find another company more suitable, stay here or sell off the Vermont and Maine lines since they already approved the sale before NH.

Mike P
That would be great if you didn’t need Government approval for a lot of things. The reality is the telephone company going back to the old ATT was a regulated monopoly. That monopoly was regulated in NH by the PUC. I don’t see that changing with the current Legislature that wants to pass Seatbelt Laws and No smoking in Playgrounds.

It is time for the UL to do a story on the NH PUC and their voting members and get their reaction to the current mess Fairpoint is in. Many of these issues people are dealing with today were discussed at the hearings on the sale. The Office of Consumer Advocate opposed this sale and as we can see for good reason.
- Chris, Merrimack

call obama, he can fix it...he can fix anything!
- fpc, mancheseter

"We will get to it as soon as we can. We're getting more familiar with the systems and the processes every day, but until we get extremely proficient, it's just going to take a little bit longer."

In other words, they have no idea how to operate NH's public telephone service. This transition was no surprise. They've had many months to train personnel for it. In fact, they probably kept many of the Verizon technicians. So why is everything a big mystery to them?

When Fairpoint was applying to take over, they guaranteed us that they'd be capable of managing our phone system. They're failing. Is the PUC finally going to come to the aid of NH residents and businesses and do something about it, or does the PUC only serve the phone industry?

Everyone except the PUC predicted that this would be a disaster, and it is. It's time to reform the PUC and make them answer to the people.
- Alex, Nashua

Cathy(Derry), do we really want to point to government intervention as an effective way of dealing with our problems? I mean, afterall, they haven't done such a great job with the industries they have already stuck their noses into, what makes you think the telecom industry will/has been an exception?

Can't you just hear it now?:

"I'm Mr. Ineptly Corrupt Bureaucrat and I'm going to do for the telecom industry what I've already done to...err... I mean for the banking industry.

Thanks, Cathy, but no thanks.
- Mike P., Manchester

Every company (big, small, new and old) will make mistakes. To me the question is, how do they respond when customers bring the mistakes to their attention. FairPoint seems more responsive than Verizon was. Additionally, FairPoint is at least interested and engaged in improving New Hampshire's infrastructure and offering new technologies and new services to the entire state.
- Graham Chynoweth, Manchester

As I believe someone else mention, the NH PUC is fully responsible for bring Fairpoint up here. At the end of the day Verizon is a monopoly and regulated service and by law they are required to follow the PUC's authority. At the end of the day if the NH PUC had said "No" to the deal then Verizon would have had to stay in NH.

Maybe UL should be questioning NH PUC about this whole mess and penalization it plans on imposing on the mess up with phones?!?!? Unfortunately, data services such as email are not regulated by the PUC.
- Mike, Epping

When Fairpoint goes into bankrupcy, will someone at the NH PUC take some responsibility for this total joke of a dreamed up company? Fairpoint was a creation of Verizon so that it could dump NH and not spend money upgrading systems. Each day, more and more folks cut their landline, and go all cell. How many landlines get cut before Fairpoint goes out of business. I predict that the company is gone by 2010, or operating in reorganization bankrupcy. Its the technology, nobody wants a land line, especially if that "nobody" is under 30. The old telephone company will go away just as the horse and carriage companies of yesteryear.
- tom, manchester,nh

Comcast is connecting my phone this Thursday. After fairpoint screwed up my phones and email and cost me a lot of money calling people and doing business on my cell phone. I do not want to go with comcast but have no other choice because of the total ineptitude of fairpoint. Poor company, poor public relations, anti union and corrupt. They should never have been approved by the PUC and there is no doubt a need to investigate just what deals the members of the PUC made before approving fairpoint.
- Finn Connell, Portsmouth

For those who are saying we did not have a choice but had to let Verizon leave, please do your research before you chime in with this response. NY state was faced with a similar situation. They told Verizon "NO!" and Verizon could not leave. Now that area has a strong telecom provider. Our PUC could have said, "no" which would have forced Verizon to stay or find a more capable provider. As is stands the PUC was complicit in ushering in a company that gets closer and closer to bankruptcy every day...just as people said they would. So much for trying to protect the utility consumers of NH.
- Cathy, Derry, NH

I am a Fairpoint customer. I have both a landline and DSL service. I am trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I transitioned to "myfairpoint" without a hitch. I followed the directions that Fairpoint sent me in the mail the month before the changeaover. I am having some problems with email forwarding as it all comes marked as "spam" - even the tech's I talked to shake their heads on that one. But at least I get the mail with minimal disruption especially now that I have changed email addresses over for the accounts and personal addresses that are important to me. In the past few days I kept getting messages from my anti-virus package that I couldn't get into any web sites because there was a "server connection error". I power cycled, and rebooted, and "ipconfig'd" until I was blue. Nothing worked. Well, I called Fairpoint this morning and after some discussion with a very patient and very helpful technician (in Houston), I changed web browsers (I'm now a Google chrome customer) and the "problem" went away. Bottom line is, we didn't have a choice. Verizon was leaving period and nothing would have stopped them. Fairpoint was the only option. They are doing the best they can. They obviously underestimated the magnitude of the changeover and customers having to wait weeks for new service is unacceptable - if Fairpoint is smart, they will offer some compensation in return.
- Sandy, Thornton

Wayne, AG's and BBB not the right way to resolve your issue. Go on www.NH.gov and find a link for the PUC (Public Utilities Commition) There will be a contact us or e-mail link. If you follow the proper course with the PUC you should get this resolved. Have you called FP lately? Ask for a supervisor and tell them you're going to the PUC.
- Gerry, Derry

Lot better than it was before with Verizon. Lot of clean up they have to do. Backlogs, service not available to order, and drawn out provisioning changes were pretty normal. Once the backlog is taken care of, it will be nice to have an ILEC that cares.
- Jeremy Hitchcock, Manchester, NH

Is there no end to the ineptitude of this outfit. Each and every member of the PUC that blessed this fiasco should have their intelligence, if not their honesty, examined. I could understand a few glitches and would certainly understand and accomodate Johnsons request for patience, but this is absurd. Seemingly everyday, a new moronic twist in the on-going saga of Fairpoint and its "seamless transition" as our untility.
- ross, northwood

This isn't a news article about how Fairpoint is screwing up; it's an advertisement for this company. The services they offer where they're located, even their phone number. Did the UL charge the normal ad rate for this piece? Is someone related to a principle in the company or invested in it?
- Dan, Nashua

I think Fairpoint is making an honest effort to get things back up and running right. I wonder if Verizon didn't leave them in the lurch in some ways. It is a big jump going to a completely new computer system for all the phones in three states.
- Sarah, Manchester, NH

The beat continues on with the incompetence of this bush league phone company from the rural south that is trying to be a major telephone company in New England. Many of us filed with the NHPUC as intervenors during the approval process, stating Fair Point was not up to the task they wanted to take on. Now the news, day after day, week after week, proves us correct! The NHPUC which ignored citizen input and approved this buyout now appears incapable of fixing the problem they created. What will happen, given the junk bond status of Fair Point who did the buyout with the now defunct Lehman Bros, if due to economic forces Fair Point goes bankrupt? What a mess that will be. No amount of air time by mea culpas by their president on TV will fix that!
- John Linville, wolfeboro

Did anybody see Fairpoint CEO Gene Johnson's new commercial? He is asking you for your suggestions. Just send him an email if you can.
- Chris, Merrimack

They shouldn't feel bad; I've been trying to get Fair Point to disconnect my phones since August of 2008. They continue to bill me for the two phone lines I told them to disconnect back in August. I've had to contact the Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau and I still received another bill yesterday 2 March 2009.
- Wayne A. Palmer, Manchester