[A] consultant for the state’s ratepayer advocacy department says FairPoint Communications is using deteriorating communications equipment without sufficient staff to fix outages, and is prioritizing business customers when systems do get repaired.
Fred Goldstein of the Interisle Consulting Group testified in writing March 16 on behalf of the Department of Public Service before the Public Service Board as part of an ongoing service-quality investigation. FairPoint responded to the testimony in April and declined to comment for this story.
VTDigger obtained a redacted version of Goldstein’s testimony through a public records request. The Public Service Board’s general counsel, June Tierney, said a provision in the Public Records Act keeps some proprietary information private until the board can make an official declaration at a hearing.
Goldstein wrote in his public testimony that when FairPoint’s residential customers call with complaints, the company opens a trouble ticket to start a repair. Often, he said, customers are so dissatisfied with the repair process that they keep calling back, and FairPoint opens more tickets, leading to high numbers of outstanding repair orders.
Goldstein said the company “barely” met Public Service Board goals to remedy about two-thirds of customer problems within 24 hours and said customer service declined “precipitously” in 2014 — well before the four-month labor strike by FairPoint workers in northern New England.
Further, “business customers were repaired in far less time, on average, than residential customers,” he said. “[B]usiness lines are more competitive, which may also give FairPoint an extra incentive to maintain higher quality. FairPoint did note that ‘business customers are offered a higher priority than residential customers,’” Goldstein testified.
Beth Fastiggi, FairPoint’s Vermont president, did not respond to a request for comment on Goldstein’s criticisms. The company’s spokesperson, Angelynne Beaudry, pointed VTDigger to the company’s prefiled testimony, which says, in part, that severe weather in 2014 and the labor strike were major factors in the company’s service-quality ratings.
Fastiggi also wrote that FairPoint is “a leader in enabling business to thrive in an information age economy” and said the company “must manage its capital resources based on individual business cases in a way that will provide a return on investment.”
She said the company offers up to 1 Gbps symmetrical broadband speed to many business customers and runs fiber-optic Internet cable to cell towers and rejected an allegation from Goldstein that FairPoint is “milking the last life out of embedded [telephone network technology] but not operating it in a long-term sustainable manner.”
Jim Porter, the senior policy and telecommunications director for the Department of Public Service, said the company “continues to miss the same metric” by not repairing problems within 24 hours.
“If they prioritize business customers but they can still meet their metrics to the residential customers, then I’m not really concerned,” Porter said. “If it appears that that’s part of the problem, then we would not find it acceptable.”
The investigation started Jan. 8 and is ongoing through at least Sept. 16, when technical hearings start before the Public Service Board. (The board will also decide during those hearings whether to release specific information on the company’s phone system outage in November.)
Fastiggi also says in testimony that the societal shift from landline service to cellular service is putting the business under duress; landline customers have dropped by 45 percent since 2007, she said.
Goldstein said the company has a “bright spot” with its digital subscriber line, or DSL, service in Vermont, where the company inherited customers from Verizon when it bought the landlines, and subscribers are increasing. (The number of customers is redacted.) The company’s CEO, Paul Sunu, also said at its quarterly shareholder meeting that business Ethernet services are one of FairPoint’s strengths.
On Goldstein’s side, one of FairPoint’s major problems is a deteriorating telecommunications network. The company is operating the structure “in a break/fix mode,” he said. “FairPoint is essentially making no effort to proactively replace or upgrade its [network],” he said.
As part of the pre-filed testimony, the PSB asked Goldstein if he thought FairPoint has enough staff to handle complaints from customers. He replied, “In a word, no.” The current staff is only robust enough to field complaints made during good weather, Goldstein said.
