Sanders Urges Vermont Public Service Board to Move on FairPoint Investigation

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., urged the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) Monday to move forward with the state Department of Public Service’s (DPS) request for an investigation into FairPoint Communications’ service interruptions. Vermont DPS petitioned the PSB Monday to do an investigation in the wake of an outage Friday that resulted in 911 calls failing to reach public safety answering points (PSAPs) in Middlesex, Montpelier, St. Albans and Williston (see 1412010037). The Vermont E911 Board upped its estimate Tuesday of the number of 911 calls that failed to reach PSAPs to 97 from its original estimate of 45, after 911-infrastructure company Intrado provided additional numbers to the board Monday. Intrado operated the state’s E911 system until operations switched to FairPoint at the end of November, but Intrado is still transitioning out of its role. Vermont DPS said it has received about 388 complaints regarding FairPoint’s service since early September. FairPoint’s record of service complaints, along with last week’s 911 outage, “is simply unacceptable,” Sanders said in a news release. “FairPoint’s history of bankruptcy and poor service should be cause for real concern in terms of the company’s ability to deliver the emergency services Vermonters need, deserve and are paying for.” Sanders also faulted FairPoint for its ongoing dispute with workers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where more than 1,700 have been on strike since late October (see 1410170025). “FairPoint is clearly putting the interests of the multi-billion-dollar hedge funds, which own the company, ahead of its workers and ahead of its Vermont customers,” Sanders said. A FairPoint spokeswoman said the telco is aware of the DPS petition and plans to cooperate if the PSB begins an investigation, but noted that FairPoint believes the 911 outage is unrelated to the ongoing strike.