An ongoing discussion over whether FairPoint Communications should be obliged to provide landline telephone service throughout the state was re-energized Thursday at the State House.
The company wants that obligation eased as more Mainers are cutting the cord. But a powerful advocacy group is petitioning regulators to reject the plan.
At Paul Maclean’s home in Plymouth, about 25 miles west of Bangor, there is no Internet and no cellphone. When the outside world needs to communicate with Maclean, it must rely on the black wall phone that Ma Bell installed more than 40 years ago.
And now the retired state Department of Transportation worker is worried that FairPoint Communications could abandon responsibilities it agreed to 7 years ago when it purchased Maine’s telephone lines from Verizon for $2.4 billion.
“I live alone here, I live on a fixed income,” Maclean says. “I don’t have a cellphone, I don’t have a computer. My landline is my only connection to the outside when the power goes out. It’s all I have. There must be other people like me, I would think, out especially in the rural parts of the state, that this is our only connection.”
Recognizing that, regulators required FairPoint to agree to serve as a provider of last resort as a condition of the sale.
But FairPoint now says that the market has changed as more and more customers are turning to cell service and the costs of providing landline service are going up.
Sarah Davis, senior director of government relations at FairPoint, says her firm is working with the state’s Public Advocate Office to see whether the company might be able to opt out of landline service in many of the state’s larger communities while continuing service in more rural areas.
“We are trying to hammer out a solution that does everything, it provides some relief to FairPoint recognizing that situation as it stands today and also protects the consumers of the state that they have all the assurances they need that they will have safe, reliable and affordable service in the future,” Davis says.
A bill surfaced last year in the Legislature that would relieve FairPoint of provider of last resort responsibilities. And that’s when AARP first took notice.
Lori Parham, the organization’s state director, says she recognizes that while increasing numbers of Mainers in more heavily populated areas are opting to get rid of their landlines, those in rural areas don’t have a choice.
“These folks tend to be older, they also tend to be lower income,” Parham says. “Often a landline is their only connection to their friends and to their neighbors and the telephone is what keeps them connected for health care and for security as well.”
And on Thursday afternoon a group of AARP members delivered 1,500 signature petitions to the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, the panel that is reviewing the FairPoint bill. The petition asks the committee to reject the the measure and preserve landline service.
Commitee chair Mark Dion, a Portland Democrat, says his members will need to find a solution that balances the needs of Maine’s older residents against the recognition that technology options in Maine are changing, and vary widely around the state.
“We may have to mandate that one party has the responsibility to provide service, but I think that we’re not doing a very good job if we don’t recognize that in southern and central Maine, the market may require other kinds of solutions,” Dion says.
An estimated 25,000 Mainers are served by FairPoint under the provider of last resort requirement.