States See Rise in Complaints After FairPoint Sale to Consolidated

The Maine PUC received 492 customer calls or complaints about Consolidated since June last year, compared with 378 in the approximately 16-month period from February 2016 to June 2017, PUC Administrative Director Harry Lanphear told us. The Vermont Department of Public Service got 756 phone and 320 broadband complaints about Consolidated from July 1, 2017, to Sept. 30, 2018, compared with 411 phone and 211 broadband complaints Feb. 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017, a DPS spokesperson said. In New Hampshire, 538 people contacted the Public Utilities Commission about Consolidated so far this year, a PUC spokeswoman said. That’s up from 407 in all of 2017 about FairPoint or Consolidated, though down -- for now -- from 592 contacts in 2016 about FairPoint, she said. New Hampshire tracks customer contacts, which can be informational rather than concern-oriented, but they’re rarely compliments, she said.

“We have a comprehensive plan already in place in Northern New England to improve service for our customers, which includes added resources," Consolidated Vice President-Regulatory Michael Shultz said in a Tuesday statement. "This plan, active for the past month, has been highly effective with a 49 percent improvement in customer repair volume. We are working hard to improve and upgrade service levels."

Maine commissioners may expand a probe into Brooksville citizen complaints about unreliable landline service to address problems in other parts of the state, said PUC Chairman Mark Vannoy at a livestreamed Tuesday meeting. “As we further develop and establish the scope and extent of the service quality issues, there may be things that come forward as systemic.” The other two commissioners also supported broadening the probe as needed. “The complaint has merit and I am not satisfied that Consolidated has taken adequate steps to remove the cause of the complaint,” said Commissioner Bruce Williamson.

Maine’s consumer office “continues to receive calls from their customers who are experiencing service problems and are not getting good response from Consolidated,” said Maine Public Advocate Barry Hobbins. “Many callers have stated that they had to wait weeks to get repairs.” The advocate’s office at first gave Consolidated “benefit of the doubt” because it “came in under bad circumstances” and with “good intentions,” he said: “The honeymoon is over.” A Consolidated attorney who spoke with Hobbins after Tuesday’s meeting was “forthright” about problems, and the company seemed to get the message they must do better, Hobbins said. The Brooksville probe could take six months, he estimated.

Brooksville citizens saw “numerous” landline outages over a one-month period in the town that also has poor wireless service, they complained July 31 in docket 2018-00219. “Many of our residents are elderly, do not have cell phones and do not have the mobility to go to a neighbor's house if there is an emergency.” The company isn’t explaining problems or being clear about when service will be restored, they said. The telco responded Aug. 17 that it’s making repairs and giving service credits. In a Sept. 18 update, the company said it completed a fiber upgrade. Brooksville citizens wrote back Sept. 24 that the company’s response “in no way addresses the CONTINUING problems we are having with our ESSENTIAL phone service, which Consolidated is required to maintain in good working order as provider of last resort in remote rural areas like ours.”

“It is our highest priority to improve service and repair levels in Brooksville," said Shultz. "We believe we have adequately resolved service issues in the town." The recently completed fiber upgrade will support affected facilities, the Consolidated official added.

Vermont DPS found Consolidated "failed to meet the baseline quality standard for customer troubles cleared within 24 hours by a large margin and that the margin has increased over recent months,” the PUC said in a Sept. 26 order opening an investigation in docket 18-3231-PET on compliance with retail service quality standards. DPS cited the company's quarterly service quality performance index reports. “Consumer complaints received from Consolidated customers related to service outages between July and September of 2018 has increased by 2,760% over the same period in the previous year,” while complaints about installation delays between July and September this year increased 500 percent, it said.

Consolidated was cooperating with an informal inquiry, but Vermont DPS sought a formal PUC probe “to determine whether Consolidated is taking measures to ensure prompt and reliable service consistent with its service quality obligations,” said last week’s order: “Consolidated’s recent Service Quality Performance Index reports, and the negative performance trends indicated by those reports, raise significant questions about Consolidated’s compliance with the service quality obligations it assumed” in the merger OK. The PUC scheduled an Oct. 11 prehearing conference.