FairPoint nears broadband deadline
State utilities regulators yesterday voiced concern over FairPoint's progress in expanding broadband service to 83% of its service area by the end of the year, a deadline agreed upon when the company bought Verizon's landlines in 2008.
At a special meeting yesterday, the Maine Public Utilities Commission discussed how to determine if FairPoint is nearing that benchmark, and after some deliberation commissioners voted against Chairman Jack Cashman's motion to launch an investigation into the company's broadband work, according to Capitol News Service. Instead, commissioners agreed to give FairPoint another week to provide information about its progress. At issue is how regulators will measure growth in broadband access, and how FairPoint will count and report new broadband customers. FairPoint spokesman Jeff Nevins told the Portland Press Herald the company won't know exact numbers on how many new broadband customers it has signed up until Dec. 31, but that "we're confident we'll meet the percentage that was set."
As a condition of FairPoint's purchase of Verizon's landlines, the company agreed to extend broadband service in Maine to 87% of its service area in five years, hitting 83% by the end of 2010 and 85% by July of 2012, according to the Press Herald.
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