Fairpoint Continues To Struggle With 911 ServiceFirst impression in Maine is not a particularly good one... 01:55PM Tuesday Jun 17 2008 by Karl Bodetags: business · trouble · Fairpoint CommunicationsTipped by pcme2000  Fairpoint Communications is trying to make friends in the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont after buying Verizon's DSL and landline networks. Unfortunately, they're not making a very good impression, since 911 outages have been plaguing the Fairpoint network the past few months. Problems continue in Maine, with a series of malfunctions spanning from Friday through this week, according to the Bangor Daily News. Local officials say getting answers from Fairpoint has been "complicated and slow." "We’re working with the call center and the people there to get it back up and operating as soon as possible," Jeff Nevins, a spokesman for FairPoint, said Monday afternoon. "Finding the problem is taking longer than one would hope, and also we recognize how critically important this is." The New England deal was great for Verizon, giving them a $600 million tax-write-off while eradicating more than a billion in debt. Fairpoint however went from a company with 300,000 landline customers to one with nearly 2 million in short order (and plenty of debt).
Related:- Special Sunday Meeting May Block Verizon-Fairpoint Sale
- FairPoint Lost $10 Million in 1st Quarter
- Fairpoint Makes Poor First Impression In New England
- FairPoint Delays Full Takeover of Verizon Networks
- FairPoint Is Failing to Please New Customers
- NebuAD Hit Hard By PR Disaster
- Tuesday Morning Links
- Friday Evening Links
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
| Why the 911 Changes? Was there something wrong with the old Verizon equipment that was running 911? If not, then why did Fairpoint gamble with making radical changes to the 911 system?
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This isn't fair! I was only supposed to hate just ONE presidential candidate! | |
|  | Austinloop
join:2001-08-19
Austin, TX
| Re: Why the 911 Changes? I have seen this happen before. The all known and omnipotent marketing see something new with a higher profit margin and good salesmen for the equipment with a great lets go to lunch account and sells it to the unsuspecting customer. The customer probably believes that the marketing person has their interests in mind since 911 is such a critical. Wrong, all the marketing person is interested in is their commission, not people's safety.
Consequently, the poor schmuck that maintains the equipment the field, his boss, get continually reamed by the customer for poor performance because the marketing person is not accessible. | |
| | 
Sr Tech
Premium
join:2003-01-19
New Fairfield, CT
 ·Charter Pipeline
| Somebody fubared something between the ALI and the switch (who knows without the full detail). Not sure what they did but I am assuming a miss configuration somewhere. 911 not working has nothing to do with bad copper in the field it is how the switch handles the call, this is what I used to implement for a living. | |
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tenpin784
I Went To The Dark Side?
join:2001-03-30
New Durham, NH | alright! go fairpoint  | |
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ricosoma
@verizon.net | They're trying in Southern NH At least they are trying. Fairpoint has fixed some scary looking copper lines on my street that I tried to get Verizon to fix for over a year. I hope for the sake of us Northern New Englanders they're up to the task | |
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hayabusa3303
Over 200 mph
Premium
join:2005-06-29
clubs: | intresting. And where is all the people saying now that there POTS is better and always works with 911 now? (sarcasm off now) | |
| Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA
·Comcast
 ·SONIC.NET
| That's pathetic. 911 is the simplest thing to provide and the most important thing to do with a POTS phone network. That they can't get 911 right is pathetic and unacceptable.
The government isn't doing its job if it can't get this either fixed or bypassed (like a campaign to dial direct to the emergency dispatch centers bypassing 911), along with heavy penalties to those involved (like jail time for all the shareholders). | |
| | Austinloop
join:2001-08-19
Austin, TX | Re: That's pathetic. Excuse me, but who is going to pay for the prisons when you are suggesting jail time for all shareholders. My tax bill is way to high already with out building more prisons. | |
| | 
rec9140
Provoice just DO it
join:2003-07-29
Mulberry, FL
·RoadRunner Cable
·Internet Junction ..
| said by Ulmo :
911 is the simplest thing to provide and the most important thing to do with a POTS phone network. That they can't get 911 right is pathetic and unacceptable.
911 is the simplest thing to provide via POTS? Really???.... This is a statement from some one who does not know how it works, whats involved to make it work, and does not have to maintain it on a daily basis.
911 is NOT the simplest thing to provide..... and if you think its just some simple programming to forward the call to a real number, you couldn't be more wrong.
said by Ulmo :
The government isn't doing its job if it can't get this either fixed or bypassed (like a campaign to dial direct to the emergency dispatch centers bypassing 911),
In many areas where you have a 911, all dispatch centers have been consolidated to one PSAP, and there are no longer separate dispatch centers to route the calls to. In the event that they are really FUBAR'ng the network they may not even be able to use their DR plan for routing to alternate PSAP's that may be outside their normal area. This includes direct dialing....who you going to call? ? ? ? Martha down at the police station most likely does not exist any more. She has been relocated to the 911 PSAP which may be no where near the PD is. The PD admin office is open business hours M-F 9-3, if even that.
said by Ulmo :
along with heavy penalties to those involved (like jail time for all the shareholders).
I will agree that corporate officers and employees need to be held responsible for the actions, especially in this day and age. That's true for every company on the planet. Personal responsability for the decisions you make would put a real dent in the corporate IR-responsability of the current day.
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Lorem ipsum ei pro stet equidem labores, at enim animal expetenda nec. Ea vix argumentum dissentiunt, usu esse ridens ex./ / Ban all copyright, trademarks, and IP laws! | |
|
Ittiz
@stsn.net
|  Fairpoint Fiber not worth it!
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mouseferatu
Too many cats, Too many mice
Premium,MVM
join:2004-03-16
Im not sure
clubs:
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Comcast
 ·Vonage
| At the moment, FairPoint fiber isn't working, either... said by Ittiz :
Fairpoint isn't good overall. Example: I'm moving to a house in Nashua, NH that happens to have Fairpoint fiber access (yes they do have some Fiber, it's left over from when Verzion was installing FIOS in NH).
Not only may the fiber not be worth the cost in your opinion, it isn't working very well in mine. 
I am not sure if FairPoint has figured out that fiber is either "working or not", but ours surely hasn't been for a goodly part of the last three weeks.
Someone has been out here a couple of times in a Verizon truck- the techs are Verizon, I believe, and tend to be good, but the FairPoint rep got really annoyed when I asked about that- they chewed me out and informed me in no uncertain terms that even though I need to call Verizon for repair, it is all FairPoint. They haven't "gotten around to" painting the trucks...
Still, it doesn't work well, the phones or the HSI, and the only one getting really done-in with this mess is the customer who has no other phone provision choice here.
Since there is no cell service in my area (you have good cell coverage in Nashua), there is no 911 when there is no dial-tone.
Oh, well... this is the wave of the future, apparently. It will be interesting to see how much money FairPoint has lost in the second quarter when those figures come out in the beginning of July... Perhaps after FairPoint tanks, we will get bounced back to Verizon?
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"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crispy and good with catsup." | |
| |
bc22
@comcast.net
| Re: Fairpoint Fiber not worth it! Huh? Since when is comcast internet $20...that is a promo and nothing else. Plus the upload speeds are far greater then Comcast will be able to offer simply because there network can't support anything beyond 1Mbps upstream.
And the fiber service Fairpoint is offering is excatly Verizon FIOS including speeds and pricing. Not to mention comcast blows when all the kiddies are home playing on the Xboxes. | |
| hottboiinnc
Kyle
join:2003-10-15
Toledo, OH | OLD NEWS this was posted last month. Move along and Karl find something new to bash Fairpoint with. At least they bought the area and are trying to run it unlike VZ just wanting to let it rot. | |
| | jebba2005
join:2005-01-13
Portland, ME | Re: OLD NEWS I am sorry but this another incident in another part of the state. | |
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tenpin784
I Went To The Dark Side?
join:2001-03-30
New Durham, NH
·Metrocast Communic..
edit:
June 18th, @08:51AM
| Tuesday, June 17, 2008 vs May 20, 2008.
Also, Portland to Bangor is quite the distance. 2 vastly different areas altogether.
Portland is Cumberland County, which the first outage affected. Bangor is over 120 miles away, in Penobscot County. Different PSAP, as the Cumberland Center only supported 17 of the 20+ towns in that County. | |
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OSUGoose
join:2007-12-27
Columbus, OH
clubs: | Re: OLD NEWS hotboiinc->owned | |
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ugh