Groups opposing Fairpoint's plans to buy Verizon's northern New England telephone network came to Concord today.
They brought a wheelbarrow full of postcards urging regulators to squash the deal.
New Hampshire Public Radio's David Darman has more.
Fairpoint’s proposed purchase of Verizon’s land lines is currently before the Public Utilities Commission.
But across town, dozens of people from organized labor, lawmakers and business owners spoke against the 2.7 billion dollar sale.
Cheryl Ahern, president of Communication Workers of America Local 1400 called it simply a bad idea.
Verizon wants to dump the communications in nh and sell to a company, a small company, that hopes to make a go of it. I hope that the commission bases their decision on facts and not hope, that they hope to make it.
Three state senators also oppose it.
Senator Jackie Cilley of Barrington, a Democrat, said she first had no position on the corporate sale.
But she’s concluded Fairpoint lacks managerial expertise and sufficient funds to see things through.
We’re seeing wonderful commercials and we’re hearing lots of promises. I will remind you that companies such as enron and worldcom made a lot of promises as well. The people of nh deserve far better than that and I don’t think the plan put forward to date is anywhere near adequate to the task.
Fairpoint officials have spent more than a week at the Public Utilities Commission arguing that they will be ready to take over the system.
President Peter Nixon told regulators that he wants to assure Verizon employees that Fairpoint will be a good company to work for.
We have agreed as part of the selective bargaining agreement to honor the collective bargaining agreement as it exists today. And in my testimony went so far as to say we will not reduce the compensation or benefits in the succeeding contract. And we wanted to commit to that.
He’s also promised to add 675 new jobs across the region.
Despite Fairpoint’s promises, union members said they didn’t believe the company could fulfill them.
They say Fairpoint faces a declining customer base as people switch to alternatives such as cable service and cell phones.
And they claim Fairpoint will not be able to expand broadband all that much, because the company will be too laden with debt if it buys the system.
Dave Lang heads the state’s Firefighter union.
He told his union comrades he didn’t like the way he saw the phone system going.
Ladies and gentlemen I want to remind you, years ago we had ma bell. Then we went to the baby bells. Firefighters and paramedics of this state are concerned if this merger goes through we’re going to have tinker bell.
The PUC is continuing its hearings on Verizon’s proposed sale of its network for at least one more day.
I have to ask where have all of these people been as Verizon has ignored the NH for years and run the system into the ground. I am a Telcom and IT person that has watched as everyone is ignored by Verizon and outages occur more and more frequently.
I have one choice broadband and that is Comcast which sucks. I am just a little to far from the CO and we have a Verizon box just down the street that had 30 year old batteries in it so we had no power on the phones when a outage occurred which is a FCC violation. I had to complain 6 times to the PUC and the FCC to get this fixed. The PUC sent me notes sorry we can't do anything. I have to say what does the PUC do, but cow tow to Verizon and let them get away with murder and ignoring the state of NH.
I think Senator Jackie Cilley of Barrington, a Democrat is a hypocrite and should do some research on Verizon and what they have not done for the state.
I know a few verizon techs and I can tell you that Verizon does ignore our state. I have had a person what 12 weeks for a telephone line to be installed, because of Verizon was out of copper. The PUC did nothing about the complaint.