Fairpoint Gets Final Approval from New Hampshire Regulators

Fairpoint vice president Walter Leach says it has been a long road to get officials to sign off on the company’s purchase of Verizon’s northern New England phone network.

But Leach says that effort is worth it now that New Hampshire regulators have had their say.

We have the approvals now in all three states, we have the approval from the fcc. We started this process with an announcement jan 16, 2007. So here we are 14 months later having wrapped it up so we feel very, very good about where we are.

There have been critics of the deal since it was announced last year.

Officials in New Hampshire’s consumer advocate office voiced their concerns throughout that time.

They along with union officials charged early on that Fairpoint would be carrying too much debt to buy Verizon’s network.

But revisions in that deal have lowered the purchase price by more than two hundred million dollars, and the company has agreed to cut what it pays in dividends to investors.

Ken Traum of the Consumers Advocate office says this and other changes have made the deal somewhat more attractive.

Its certainly moving in the right direction…in terms of areas of employee protections, service quality and some additional financial protections against unanticipated line losses.

Consumer Advocate officials say they still agree with some of Commissioner Graham Morrison’s dissent against approving the Fairpoint deal.

Morrison voted against it, and wrote that the company would not be financially strong enough to weather the ups and downs of the quickly changing telecommunication market.

About nine percent of land line customers have been leaving Verizon every year, and Morrison wrote he doubted Fairpoint’s promised deployment of DSL broadband would be advanced enough to stem that tide.

Labor unions have also argued this point, saying Verizon’s deployment of fiber optic technology in other states would be better able to compete against cable and wireless phones.

Still, Robert Erickson of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers says with the regulatory approval in New Hampshire, his members have no reason to keep fighting against the inevitable handover.

We want fairpoint to be successful. We want to provide good quality service with the latest technology available. That’s what we, as telephone workers want to do. We think that that’s the only way that nh and maine and Vermont will be able to compete with other states for businesses.

Fairpoint has promised New Hampshire regulators that it will have broadband deployed to 75 percent of its customers within 18 months of the takeover.

They’ve also promised to reach 85 percent six months later, or pay penalties should they fall short.

In addition, Fairpoint has said it would not raise rates to customers for five years after the company takes over.

The projected date for Verizon’s final handover to Fairpoint is tentatively set for sometime in September.