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September 20, 2007

FairPoint adds fiber-optics to upgrade plans

FairPoint Communications yesterday announced it would add fiber-optic infrastructure to its planned broadband upgrade in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire should its $2.7 billion bid for Verizon's wirelines in the three states be approved.

Jeff McCarthy, FairPoint's assistant vice president of business services, told Mainebiz the company plans to expand the wireline backbone throughout Maine so that Internet and IP service can be as fast as 10 gigabits per second, a network McCarthy compares to the latest offerings by Verizon and AT&T around the county. "There's this perception out there that we're just distributing DSL, well not at all actually," McCarthy says.

The fiber-optic technology, McCarthy says, is part of the $16 million broadband upgrade the North Carolina-based company announced in August. McCarthy says the company's decision to add fiber-optic technology to its proposed statewide upgrade is not in response to criticism that broadband is outdated, but rather because FairPoint was waiting for the results of engineering studies and research.

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