Better broadband access seen for northern N.E.

The company that intends to buy Verizon’s holdings in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont said Tuesday it would boost the availability of high-speed Internet service, an area in which the rural region has lagged.

FairPoint Communications Inc. said it plans to “significantly increase broadband availability in the region within the first 12 months.” Overall, it plans to invest $200 million on infrastructure improvements across the three states.

FairPoint’s plan to improve high-speed Internet access is welcome news in a rural region that lags behind urban areas in terms of access and choice.

The governors of Vermont and Maine have put forth formal plans to improve broadband availability. In Vermont, Gov. Jim Douglas calls it the “e-state” initiative. In Maine, Gov. John Baldacci’s program is called “ConnectME.”

Leach said FairPoint provides high-speed Internet access to more than 80 percent of its customers. Twenty-three percent of FairPoint’s customers take advantage of high-speed Internet service, he said.

Verizon, meanwhile, provides the service to 62 percent of its customers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and only 12 percent actually use the service, he said.

“We believe the customers will see a different level of attention and as a result will be happier at the end of the day with FairPoint,” Leach said in a telephone interview from the company’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.

One Maine official said it won’t be hard for FairPoint to improve upon Verizon’s record.

“Verizon has done such a bad job of deploying broadband,” said Wayne Jortner, senior counsel from the Maine Public Advocate’s Office in Augusta. “I think FairPoint can only improve from Verizon’s very slow pace.”

Likewise, Vermont Commissioner David O’Brien from the Vermont Department of Public Service said he welcomes a company that has a commitment to broadband services in rural areas.

“It has been clear for some time that [Verizon’s] future is not in Vermont or northern New England as a whole,” O’Brien said. “We’ve wanted someone who would come to Vermont and see it as part of their future and not part of their past.”

Stephen Merrill, a telecommunications analyst for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission’s consumer advocate, also was encouraged by the news.

“There have been some issues in regards to whether Verizon has tended to its business in New Hampshire in terms of quality of service,” he said.