Tell the FCC: Stop the Sale of Verizon to FairPoint

Sometime this fall, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) will decide whether to approve the sale of Verizon's landlines in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont to North Carolina-based FairPoint Communications.  The sale gives Verizon an easy way to abandon its less profitable rural landline customers, while retaining more profitable wireless and large business customers.  Verizon picked tiny FairPoint because of an obscure tax loophole that allowed them to avoid paying up to $700 million on the sale! 

If approved, the proposed Verizon sale to FairPoint sets a dangerous precedent with national implications for all rural areas.  Fill out your name and address information to tell to the Federal Communication Commission to Stop the Sale!*

Note: After this petition is submitted to the FCC it will be publicly available.

*To protect yourself, if you are an employee of Verizon or FairPoint working in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont, please do not sign or send this email to the FCC. 

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Stop the Sale of Verizon to FairPoint

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

The FCC should deny FairPoint's proposed acquisition of Verizon's telephone operations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont because it would not serve the public interest. FairPoint, a small, highly leveraged firm will not have the financial or technical resources required to successfully conduct these operations. Approval of the transaction would not only place consumers, workers and communities at significant risk but would also set a bad precedent for the whole country.

FairPoint is just not up to the task. Its shaky finances pose significant concerns and risks. It will add $1.7 billion in debt and use the cash provided by the acquired operations to primarily pay for dividends and further acquisitions -- instead of adequately funding existing operations and infrastructure.

FairPoint's operational and managerial capacity also is inadequate. Management would have to deal with a 614 percent increase in access lines and a 333 percent increase in employees. Moreover, there is a significant risk that FairPoint will run into delays and cost overruns when it replaces Verizon's 600 operational, administrative and support systems, further undermining its ability to serve the public.

When companies like FairPoint run into problems they usually cut back on labor costs and capital expenditures while attempting to increase rates. Customers end up paying more for worse service. Communities would suffer from reduced broadband build out.

Approval of the FairPoint sale by the FCC would also send a signal encouraging other large telephone companies to sell off their rural operations to much smaller companies that do not have the resources or capacity to improve services or provide truly high speed broadband.

The Commission should deny the transaction because the public interest risks overwhelm any supposed benefits.

Signed by:

Campaign Launched:
August 03, 2007


Background Information

If Verizon is allowed to sell its landlines to FairPoint it could have disastrous consequences for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont.  For example:

Rates could increase.

Currently FairPoint is a little over $600 million in debt.  If the deal goes through, tiny FairPoint could be as much as $2.3 billion in debt.  How will it be able to maintain Verizon's aging copper network without increasing phone rates?  How will it make much needed improvements in service?

Service could suffer.

Verizon is able to call on people and equipment from across the country to help repair the damage from winter storms and other disasters so that phone lines keep working.  Who will tiny FairPoint call on?

Economic development could be impaired.

High-speed Internet connections are increasingly essential for education, public safety and economic development.  FairPoint has announced plans to deliver only relatively slow digital subscriber line (DSL) service, not the high-speed fiber network that rural areas need to prosper.

Allowing Verizon to abandon rural America will increase the digital divide! 

More information about the campaign to Stop the Sale to FairPoint is on www.stop-the-sale.org and www.no-deal.org. 

What's the alternative? 

Universal Internet access to end the digital divide.

If the FCC approves the sale to FairPoint it will leave large numbers of citizens without high speed Internet access, and some without Internet access at all.  Those who "go without" are left out of the potential advantages of high speed Internet access in areas as diverse as education and health, to civic participation and staying up on the news.  Universal access to affordable high speed Internet would ensure that everyone has the chance to reap the benefits of high speed Internet access, and that no one is forced to remain on the wrong side of the digital divide.