Tech News Vermont

Fairpoint handed in their filing on the last day of the extention they were granted by the Vermont Public Service Board.  The company has to show something to the state in order to keep Fairpoint’s certificate of public good.  Vermont Public Radio’s web site is reporting that the filling has arrived at the public service board.  The PSB is not commenting, since they haven’t had a chance to review Fairpoint’s filing.

When do Vermonters get to see the filing?  Soon I hope.  I’d like to see what Fairpoint said and how they said it.  They are facing tough times in New Hampshire and haven’t been able to keep their commitment to expand broadband on the eastern side of the Connecticut river, what have they done for Vermont?

What’s the next step if Fairpoint’s paper doesn’t convince the PSB that Fairpoint deserves to continue operating phones in Vermont?   I don’t think it will come to that.  The PSB won’t cancel Fairpoint’s license; they can’t.  There is no other company ready or even interested in Vermont’s telco infrastructure.

Vermont Public Radio is reporting that the Vermont Public Service board is “not bluffing” about the threat to revoke Fairpoint’s license to operate in Vermont pending the outcome of the meetings scheduled this week.

The key issue here isn’t that our sole vendor of telco service in the state has a poor quality product; the real issue is that the State of Vermont has a sole vendor for telco services in the first place.

The PSB should be working to grant more licenses to additional vendors, rather than focusing in on Fairpoint.  The general public is angry with Fairpoint and needs to have telco services as a matter of public safety so sure, the low hanging fruit in this scenario is to vilify Fairpoint and make political theater.

At some point in this process it will become too financially painful for Fairpoint to stay in Vermont and they will pack up their toys and go back to North Carolina.  This will leave 100s of Vermonters unemployed and throw the telco needs of Vermonters into total chaos.

Why can’t Vermont use the power of the market and bring more competition to the state telco industry?  Give Vermonters a choice in telco vendors and pressure Fairpoint into a quality product using good old fashioned competition.

In a radio report, VPR’s John Dilon reported about a comment made by the PSB about revoking Fairpoint’s license in Vermont.  A posting over at the Gerson Lehrman Group suggests that this is an idle threat and that the PSB really can’t revoke Fairpoint’s license without enacting a state-run telco.

It’s the PSB’s job to review these things BEFORE they happen and ensure that deals like the Verizon to Fairpoint switch don’t put the public in jeopardy.  The PSB is hearing from Vermonters all around the state who are having trouble with their phone and Internet service.  They have to do something, but what can they do?

They made an idle threat about licence revocation to a company that’s already struggling.  This reminds me of those parents I see in the supermarket who threaten a crying child with a spanking if they don’t hush up.

If Fairpoint loses its license to operate in Vermont a few things happen:

• All the Fairpoint phones go dead.
• Most the Internet connectivity goes dark.
• Vermont’s unemployment rate goes up (all those Vermonters working for Fairpoint get fired.)
• Lawyer come out of the wood work to sue everyone.

If the PSB really wanted to put pressure on Fairpoint, they wouldn’t talk about revoking licenses at all.  They would talk about granting licenses to other telco companies.  The PSB should start working with other telecommunications companies to bring more competition to Vermont.  That would motivate Fairpoint to improve much faster than some pie-in-the-sky threat about revoking their license.

After the threat, what’s happened?  Fairpoint says that they will continue to work on the initiatives already underway to fix the troubles in Vermont.  They’ve announced a executive restructuring (i.e. someone got moved/fired) and a renewed focus on their New England business unit.  They know there are problems and they are working to fix them.  It doesn’t help Fairpoint any that the Time Argus runs a front page above the fold story on the July holiday weekend about how one Fairpoint customer is having troubles.  Sure there are a number of Fairpoint customers having troubles.  I’m one of them; my DSL never works in the rain and it’s been raining a lot; and Fairpoint has yet to send the promised tech out to my house.

But I’m one customer, the lady in the Times Argus story is one customer, each news story focuses on one Fairpoint customer having troubles.  How many Fairpoint customers are there in Vermont?  Out of all the Fairpoint customers, what percentage are having problems,  that’s the number I’d like to see.