When Verizon divested their landline networks in Hawaii, the result was a largely dysfunctional company named Hawaii Telcom that struggled under the load and filed for bankruptcy last December. When Verizon divested their landline networks in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont last year, the result was a largely dysfunctional company named Fairpoint Communications that struggled under the load and has very serious problems.

As such, obviously, everybody's concerned that Verizon's latest effort to offload unwanted (largely rural) DSL, FTTH and landline customers to Frontier Communications will also end badly. The $8.5 billion deal, announced back in May, will eventually infuse Frontier with 4.8 million new residential and small-business phone lines and 1 million broadband connections. 11,000 Verizon employees will be transferred. Frontier currently has just 2.3 million customers.

Nothing has really changed yet. Strangely, Verizon's still even deploying FiOS in areas that will ultimately be sold to Frontier in Washington State. Local Washington regulators are well aware of the problems that plagued Fairpoint and Hawaii Telcom, insisting to local reporters that "we're doing everything we can to prevent that here." Frontier, meanwhile, continues to insist they're nothing like Fairpoint, given they have a better bankroll.

But according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, local consumer advocates in the state aren't so sure. "We are concerned that Frontier will not be able to afford to maintain and improve residential customers' service," says Ohio Consumers' Counsel Janine Migden-Ostrander. "We need a guarantee that consumers' needs will not be on the back burner," she said in a statement.