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pcme2000
join:2008-01-17
Bangor, ME

pcme2000

Member

Fair Point At Meeting

FairPoint Says It's Making Progress
Posted By: Caroline Cornish, Reporter 18 hrs ago
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AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER) -- FairPoint Communications tried to accentuate the positive Wednesday, as it's president testified before the legislature's Committee on Utilities and Energy.

The committee held a hearing at the request of Senate President Libby Mitchell, who was concerned about FairPoint's continual problems with customer service. The committee didn't expect to create any legislation as a result of this hearing. It was only a way to keep up the pressure on FairPoint.

FairPoint has faced some tough crowds recently, going before legislative committees in New Hampshire and in Vermont. Vermont regulators threatened the company may lose its ability to do business in the state. But here in Maine, committee members and the state's Public Advocate said those threats do no good. They just want to find a way to fix FairPoint's service problems.

The Public Advocate is asking the Public Utilities Commission to force FairPoint to hire a third party to look into problems with its computer system and fix them. The Public Advocate said that while FairPoint has been doing better at responding to customer complaints, it has yet to fix the underlying computer problems that have led to the issues in the first place.

FairPoint agrees that the third party solution is a good one. The two sides only differ on how much that third party should be required to report to the Public Utilities Commission.

The company emphasized that it's made significant progress in reducing the backlog of customer complaints. It's unclear how long it will take for a permanent computer system fix to get in place.

NEWS CENTER

»www.wlbz2.com/news/local ··· &catid=3
lobster11
join:2004-01-19
Brunswick, ME

lobster11

Member

"The company is set to deploy a next-generation Internet Protocol network next week. It will be available to business customers in the fourth quarter of this year and to consumers in the second quarter of next year."

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH

tschmidt

MVM

I assume by "next-generation IP" they mean IPv6. That is nice an all but I would think that would be rather low priority on their TO-DO list.

/tom

mouseferatu
Too many cats, Too many mice
MVM
join:2004-03-16
Im not sure

mouseferatu

MVM

If indeed FP is wasting time, money, and effort on IPv6 adoption as a top priority, they are even more out of touch with reality than I imagined...

Fix the most basic of services- like a reliable dial-tone and basic Internet access- first!
jadziedzic
Premium Member
join:2005-12-12
Nashua, NH

jadziedzic

Premium Member

I believe they're talking about switching to MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) on their backbone; supposedly cranks up the speed quite a bit. Of course, fat lot of good that's going to do for the last mile (or most of their miles).

mouseferatu
Too many cats, Too many mice
MVM
join:2004-03-16
Im not sure

mouseferatu

MVM

Agreed... most of the immediate technical difficulties that I have experienced have occurred between the ONT and the CO, and addressing backbone issues won't address the ineptitude of the call center in Texas...

It won't fix the billing system, either.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

tschmidt to jadziedzic

MVM

to jadziedzic
said by jadziedzic:

I believe they're talking about switching to MPLS ... Of course, fat lot of good that's going to do for the last mile (or most of their miles).
Thanks for the update.

1) Gee I thought most carriers were already doing MPLS. Don't think of it as next generation as it is already massively deployed.

2) Hard to tell for sure from press coverage but I agree they are mainly having problems: getting customer's connected, billing, and third party access. Personality I haven't noticed problems due to network congestion.

On an off topic technical note if they are optimizing network performance with MPLS perhaps they can give end users a 10% speed boost by dropping ATM for DSL. Chucking PPPoE while they are at it would be a good idea.

/tom