Think your Internet is too slow? It’s not just you.

Maine ranks No. 35 nationally for Internet speed, with an average rate of 1.53 megabits per second, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Communications Workers of America.

The rates for surrounding New England states outpaced Maine, peaking in Rhode Island with 5 mbps. Vermont, the next slowest in the region, averages 2 mbps, according to the survey. The national average is 1.97 mbps.

The CWA is working with members of Maine’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union to draw attention to Maine’s slow Internet speed.

IBEW workers in Maine are using the results to galvanize residents and legislators to oppose Verizon Communications’ pending sale of its Maine’s land-line and broadband service to a much smaller company, FairPoint Communications. Union officials are worried about what will happen to workers if the sale is completed.

Peter McLaughlin, a Maine IBEW representative, said FairPoint would be billions of dollars in debt if it completes the purchase. He said that FairPoint would not be able to maintain the current level of service and telecommunications workers would lose out.

“Our concerns with a new company coming in $2.3 billion in debt is that they won’t be able to honor their promises,” McLaughlin said in a telephone interview. “If the company goes belly-up, then we have huge problems for workers – we are talking pensions as well as benefits.”

Dan Breton, Verizon’s director of government affairs in Maine, disagrees.

Breton said he knows employees have concerns, but he insists the potential sale is good news for workers.

“The sale won’t result in any losses of positions, and employees’ current contracts will be honored,” Breton said in a telephone interview. “Everybody’s full intention is to have good, trained, happy people to be employed at FairPoint.”

FairPoint defends the proposed Verizon deal.

“We’re going to spend $200 million in systems, hardware and infrastructure” to accelerate the transition, FairPoint’s vice president for corporate development, Walter Leach, said earlier this spring in Bangor.

He said 93 percent of FairPoint’s telephone customers use its DSL Internet service, while only 62 percent of Verizon’s customers use its DSL service.

Still, some Maine lawmakers worry about how the potential sale might lower the level of telephone and broadband service to the state’s residents.

Twenty legislators have sponsored a bill that would change the conditions for approval of public utility sales by the Public Utilities Commission. The board consists of three commissioners appointed by the governor and approved by the Legislature.

According to the bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Nancy Sullivan, D-Biddeford, the bill was defeated in the Senate during a vote late Friday afternoon and now has moved to the House for consideration.

Rep. Larry Bliss, House chairman of the Legislature’s Utilities and Energy Committee, said the bill would raise the bar of service for new companies providing service in Maine.

“The current statute says that the PUC must determine that a sale can’t hurt the people of Maine. The new bill says that the people of Maine must benefit. It’s a raising of the bar,” Bliss said.

Bliss, a Democrat from South Portland, said it is rare for the Legislature to work on a bill that has the potential to change a business sale in progress.

Verizon’s Breton said the proposed bill is the Legislature’s attempt to change the rules in the middle of the game.

“What signal are they sending to the business community? That you can strike a deal but then the Legislature will weigh in?” Breton asked. “We have a bill now that has all … eyes on it, with everyone wondering what business will be next.”

Bliss disagrees.

“I don’t think this sets a precedent,” he said.

Bliss said that Maine has been working a long time to expand and heighten broadband service across the state.

“The current level of broadband access hampers business and economic development,” he said. “Of course, if the largest phone company in Maine were sold to someone who couldn’t be a leader in the field, that would be a loss.”

BDN staff writer Anne Ravana contributed to this report.