Fairpoint Sucks

(For the benefit of all the frustrated Fairpoint customers and workers in Vermont, I am promoting this letter diary to our Front Page. – promoted by Sue Prent)

An open letter to: Unvalued Sunu,

As a Vermonter, I have read of the dissatisfaction with your services in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the letter to you from my Senators Leahy and Sanders and Representative Welsh and your reply to Vermont Governor Shumlin. The last letter is irrelevant to your failure to provide communications services to the people of Vermont. You are fundamentally failing to provide the public communications services expected of a public utility. Your firm is failing to maintain your distribution lines, to provide adequate server capacity to service the DSL system you installed, to provide backup to the E911 system and to adequately communicate with your “Dear Valued Customers.”  Since the public of the unserved states has no say concerning your internal problems, whether they be management, financial or labor issues, the public can end your services.

Locally, my neighbors who work for Fairpoint will be supported rather than you.

Fairpoint Communication has responsibility to provide the services regardless of the mentioned internal problems. It is obvious that you are attempting to hold the people of Vermont hostage for your corporate benefit. Vermonters are not for sale.

The tree that was leaning on my telephone line because of wet snow was beneath no electric cables. It is now over four weeks since that tree stretched the line such that only the old rotary phone in my house will ring. There is now so much noise on the line that conversations are nearly impossible. I have made one cell telephone call and sent three emails to your residential repair.

Your condescending, computer generated responses to “Dear Valued Customer” are unsatisfactory, scam responses to my lack of service.

A lack of redundance in a E911 system (E is for emergency), is inexcusable. There should have been two redundant servers in an emergency system, one of which could have been serviced while the other was on line. You did not properly supervise whoever was performing the repairs/upgrade and/or you did not have adequate available backup. The behavior of my Internet connection causes me to believe that your server capacity is insufficient to serve your customer base. I have read nothing that you desire to make any amends, whatsoever, to those who were harmed by their lack of ability to obtain assistance when in need. I don’t understand how anyone who thinks as you can act in the name of public service.

Have you ever climbed a telephone pole. Do you know how to splice a telephone cable. Do you have the foggiest idea of what facilities are required for installation of an electronic telephone switch. Do you know anything other than the words of the above activities. Can you repair your telephone? As an engineer, I once directed the installation of a nine hundred phone system in a General Electric Silicones  plant; new lines on the poles, the room for the digital switch, buried connection to the off-site telephone system and safety of the workers installing the system. I am retired and have never been one of your employees. Do you know which end of a screw driver is the handle?

New Hampshire is putting the brakes on a decision on a $13 million contract with FairPoint Communications to provide state government with telephone and Internet service. According to the AP, that FairPoint contract may be taken up in January or that state’s council could choose to reopen the bidding process. Based on what I have read, the bidding should be reopened.

Based on what I have read, the Vermont Public Service Board should immediately undertake determination on how to replace Fairpoint Communications in Vermont. If our only alternative is to create a communications department within our state organization to replace private enterprise, I would support that solution. Banking, health, communications, etc. should all be dedicated public services.

Before you get excited about getting your idea of your infrastructure investment back, let me state that my experience as a town property lister taught me that utilities understate their miles of line and the depreciated value of their facilities. It is my belief that those facilities of yours are worth less than the value on which you have paid taxes.

As an eighty-two year old, who has independently worked as a project engineer for national and international managements, most of which could effectively manage their reasons for existence, I want you out of business in Vermont. Your business is endangering the public welfare. The states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont should file suit against your business; a suit of sufficient magnitude to bankrupt your corporate divisions in those states for failing to provide adequate public services. Furthermore, those states and their citizens should cease paying their bills until all repair and service issues are resolved and adequate communications restored to OUR satisfaction.

Enough of your excuses! You’re a pathetic loser who cannot do the job! Your head is too big!!

Perry Cooper

ps: Wachovia ripped off a trust account of mine by substituting REITs for valuable stocks. Fairpoint is now billing me for unsatisfactory service. If I can avoid them, I will no longer do business with persons of any kind operating from North Carolina.

cc:

Senator Leahy

Senator Sanders

Representative Welsh

Governor Shumlin

Maine Public Utilities Commission

New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission

Vermont Utilities Commission

Federal Communications Commission