A New Hampshire home heating oil company that faced customer delivery delays earlier this year has sued FairPoint Communications over a phone outage that happened at the same time.
Fred Fuller Oil said a combination of extreme weather conditions, a huge increase in oil and propane demand and an overload and temporary crash of the company phone system led to problems during the winter. The state said it had to step in after receiving complaints from residents, setting up a phone number.
WMUR-TV reports Fuller Oil says the phone failure was caused by a power surge. It said no surge protection was integrated into its phone system. Fuller said FairPoint knew about it and refused to promptly replace the system.
FairPoint has not yet responded to messages seeking comment.