Vermont’s Department of Public Service is weighing whether to launch a service quality investigation into Consolidated Communications, the state’s main landline provider, which has seen a spike of complaints from consumers in recent months.
Throughout the summer, customers have told state officials that the company is saying it will take ten days or more to repair downed landline phone and or internet service, said Clay Purvis, director of telecommunications and connectivity at DPS.
Purvis said that in some cases, the company has been able to resolve service issues much faster than this. “Often they beat that appointment time, but for some reason they’re telling people it will be 10 days or 12 days or 14,” he said.
However, Purvis said that Consolidated is still taking too long to fix issues. The state expects the telecommunications companies it regulates to resolve 70 percent of their service problems within 24 hours. At this point, Purvis said the company is only fixing 26 percent of issues within that time frame.
He called this slow rate “indefensible.”
“I think we’re moving towards a service quality investigation absent a drastic turnaround in service quality,” Purvis said.
Unlike many of the large providers and cable companies in Vermont, Consolidated, which purchased Fairpoint Communications in 2017, falls under the purview of state regulators. For some rural regions, it is the only available source of phone and internet service.
A graph produced by DPS and provided to VTDigger shows that complaints about Consolidated repair delays shot up sharply in July. Last month, the department received 12 or more complaints about the provider every week, according to the document.
The graph shows that before July, the department would typically receive two complaints or fewer every six days. The document only records complaints until the second week in August, where they tapered off slightly from July.
Shannon Sullivan, a spokesperson for Consolidated Communications, said that the company is currently experiencing “heavy workloads” in Vermont, which have prompted delays.
“Our intent is to repair reported issues that require dispatch to a customer location within 24 hours but the current heavy workload in the state, storms, construction, roadwork, etc. can result in some delays,” Sullivan wrote in an email.
“We have a plan to improve service to our customers that is underway and includes adding additional resources. Our intent is to be back to normal levels in a few weeks. “
Sullivan added that the company plans on committing $1 million for each of the next three years to “address issues in areas of the state where we see a higher number of troubles” and reinvesting at least 14 percent of its Vermont revenues back into the state for broadband expansion and network upgrades.
To launch a formal investigation into Consolidated, DPS would need to file a petition with the Public Utility Commission. Purvis said this would likely happen in September.
Kyle Landis-Marinello, the commission’s general counsel, declined to comment on whether the body would sign off on an investigation into Consolidated or whether it had opened one of its own.
Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, said her constituents in rural parts of southeastern Vermont, where cell phone service is nonexistent in some places, largely rely on Consolidated for phone connection, and are among those reporting service problems.
She recently heard from a constituent in Readsboro, who had lost landline service. Sibilia said Consolidated told the constituent, who is disabled and recently underwent stomach surgery, that it would take ten days to restore her service.
After Sibilia contacted Consolidated about the situation, the company quickly resolved the problem. Sullivan said the issue was caused by lightning hitting a cable, “which required a significant amount of work to repair but were completed on the same day it was identified.”
While Sibilia said Consolidated’s service woes were a serious problem that needs to be fixed, she noted that they’re a “symptom of a larger problem.”
The telecommunications market inherently encourages larger providers including cable companies to serve more densely populated areas, and fewer providers to branch out into rural parts of the state — a majority of Vermonters live in rural areas.
Sibilia said that state regulators should consider changing the rules for rural providers to allow them to “prioritize repairs in low density population areas as opposed to having to treat all repairs equally.”
“We’ve got to provide them with some flexibility in terms of repair times, in terms of prioritization, in terms of prioritizing repairs in less densely populated areas first,” she said.
Purvis said that by considering an investigation into Consolidated the department isn’t looking to punish the company.
“They provide an essential and vital service they have a very difficult business model,” he said. “This is about protecting consumers and also protecting the viability of Consolidated’s business.”
He said the outcome of an investigation would likely be corrective action: hiring experts to put together recommendations for Consolidated to improve its service.
“This is not about punishing them,” Purvis said. “this is about ensuring that we can maintain good landline telephone service in rural Vermont.”
