Consolidated Reduces Complaints After Late Summer Spike in Former Fairpoint Territory
Consolidated Communications resolved issues leading to service-quality probes in Maine and Vermont, and is investing in the northern New England territory it acquired from FairPoint in 2017, executives said in an interview. Customer calls to utility commissions in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont declined, after a surge in late summer 2018, commission data shows. The states heard more gripes after the FairPoint sale (see 1810020045).
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The Vermont PUC probe involves late summer 2018 complaints that resulted from “some one-time events,” said Consolidated Vice President-Regulatory Mike Shultz. Since then, Consolidated has significantly reduced trouble rates and times for installation and responses to complaints, he said. “We’re in what I’d consider a normal range for this time of year.” He noted hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. had diverted some resources, slowing progress in northern New England, but the carrier got "additional resources.”
“Everything’s returned to normal in Brooksville,” the rural Maine town that instigated a PUC probe, said Senior-Director-Regulatory Sarah Davis. Complaints came in late summer “when a lot of things were happening,” with many about long delays in repair times and calls to customer service, she said. “Since then, we have brought down our answer times for call centers and we’ve brought our repair load probably even a little bit lower than normal.” Consolidated is meeting Maine’s customer service metrics, she said. Brooksville didn't comment.
The Vermont Department of Public Service got 500 complaints July-October about Consolidated, up from 136 in the year-ago period, shows data given to us by the Consumer Affairs Division. There were more than 100 complaints each of those months in 2018, peaking at 152 in August. Complaints dropped to 54 in November, rose to 91 in December, then declined to 49 in January and 23 in February. DPS must submit prefiled testimony by March 29 to the Consolidated probe in docket 18-3231-PET, which is in discovery, and a status conference is scheduled for April 5, a Vermont PUC spokesperson said.
Maine complaints peaked at 104 in August after seven months averaging under 30, Maine PUC data shows. Complaints declined to 52 in September 2018, then 24 in October and 13 in November. Complaints rose in January to 27, then fell to 14 in February, which was similar to the number seen in those months the previous year. The agency will soon issue an examiner’s report in its Consolidated probe in docket 2018-00219, a spokesperson emailed. “After that, the Commission will seek comments and then make a formal decision.”
The New Hampshire PUC had a reduction in consumer calls about Consolidated after they spiked in late summer, a spokesperson emailed. The Consumer Services Division got 751 calls in 2018, up from 407 about Consolidated or FairPoint the previous year, she said. Calls rose to 134 in August from 44 in July. After 78 calls in September and 87 in October, they declined, to 62 in November, 65 in December, 40 in January and 21 in February, she said: “We are seeing a return to a more typical volume.”
Consolidated is meeting state merger conditions to spend $3 million a year for three years in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to address areas with poor service quality, Shultz said. “There’s some network that’s been there quite a long time that we’re slowly going through and identifying and replacing as necessary.”
“We’re making great strides” in northern New England, providing services that weren’t previously available to FairPoint customers, Shultz said. Consolidated is tapping FairPoint’s existing fiber backbone to expand the network, he said. The carrier completed more than 80 percent of rural locations funded by the FCC Connect America Fund Phase II in Maine and 99 percent in Vermont and New Hampshire, said Shultz. Through CAF, the company has rolled out more than 515 miles of fiber in Maine, Davis said. In December, Consolidated met a February 2018 commitment to upgrade broadband speeds for 500,000 northern New England homes and small businesses, Shultz said. Consolidated deployed fiber to either the node or home to double or triple speeds in the mostly urban and suburban locations not covered by CAF II, he said.
Consolidated has two greenfield fiber-to-the-home projects for new developments in Maine localities Westbrook and Scarborough, said Davis. The telco is nearing contracts for public-private partnerships with Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and one other place it hasn’t announced, she said.
Editor's note: This is Part II of an occasional Communications Daily series on phone-service problems. Part I examined Frontier Communications snafus in Minnesota: 1901140002.