FairPoint Not Excused for Maine Service Quality Failures, Says Public Advocate
Don’t let FairPoint off the hook for missing Maine service quality benchmarks from Q3 2014 to Q2 2016, the state Office of Public Advocate told the Public Utilities Commission. The PUC in October proposed $500,000 in civil penalties for service…
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quality violations, but the company protested the amount and blamed failures on reasons out of its control (see 1701030041). In testimony filed Wednesday in docket 2014-00376, OPA regulatory consultant David Brevitz said FairPoint shouldn't be excused. “FairPoint knew very well what the service quality benchmarks were that it was required to meet or expose itself to penalties,” Brevitz said. “FairPoint made various business decisions that resulted in its inability to meet the service quality benchmarks, and even get close to them for extended periods of time. The circumstances indicate that FairPoint clearly accepted potential penalties as a ‘cost of doing business’, and it would be unjust for the Commission to relieve FairPoint of paying the penalties given its complete knowledge of the service quality benchmarks, its sustained failure to meet the benchmarks -- and even improve performance, and its own decisions regarding operations in Northern New England.” FairPoint service quality issues came up earlier this week at a PUC technical conference on the company's proposed acquisition by Consolidated Communications (see 1702210052).