{"id":8323,"date":"2012-05-10T16:48:38","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T20:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=8323"},"modified":"2012-05-10T16:48:52","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T20:48:52","slug":"fairpoint-can-keep-penalty-money-to-build-up-broadband-coveragethe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/05\/10\/fairpoint-can-keep-penalty-money-to-build-up-broadband-coveragethe\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairpoint Can Keep Penalty Money To Build Up Broadband Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8324\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"If Fairpoint agrees to the PUC's terms, NH could see better broadband coverage\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/05\/6972734524_5437a493e8.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8324\" title=\"iPad and iPhone\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/05\/6972734524_5437a493e8-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/05\/6972734524_5437a493e8-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/05\/6972734524_5437a493e8.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Sean MacEntee<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">If Fairpoint agrees to the PUC&#39;s terms, underserved areas could see better broadband coverage<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The question of whether to offer customers rebates for bad service or expand broadband access throughout the state is now pretty much for <a title=\"Fairpoint Communications\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fairpoint.com\/residential\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fairpoint<\/a> to decide.<\/p>\n<p>The telecom company faces $2.8 million in fines related to a series of service problems that cropped-up back in 2009.\u00a0 Rather than return the fees to customers, Fairpoint asked the Public Utilities Commission to allow it to use that money to expand broadband access.\u00a0 <a title=\"Fairpoint Fees Could Go To Customers\u2026Or Back To Fairpoint\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/03\/26\/fairpoint-fees-could-go-to-customers-or-back-to-fairpoint\/\" target=\"_blank\">As we previously reported<\/a>, it was a controversial proposal.\u00a0 And, as <a title=\"PUC gives FairPoint choice on penalties\" href=\"http:\/\/www.unionleader.com\/article\/20120510\/NEWS02\/705109951\" target=\"_blank\">Dennis Paiste now writes for the <em>Union-Leader<\/em><\/a>, the PUC approved the proposal by a vote of 2-1.\u00a0 But Commissioner Michael Harrington wrote a dissenting opinion:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c&#8217;In my opinion, allowing FairPoint to keep the money and use it for unregulated capital investment sends the wrong message about the purpose of performance penalties,&#8217; Harrington said.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/03\/26\/fairpoint-fees-could-go-to-customers-or-back-to-fairpoint\/\">Fairpoint Fees Could Go To Customers\u2026Or Back To Fairpoint<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/04\/18\/nh-house-mulls-deregulating-phone-service\/\">NH House Mulls Deregulating Phone Service<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/02\/01\/why-the-telephone-pole-tax-matters\/\">Why The Phone Pole Tax Matters<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/04\/17\/wivalley-battles-hills-budgets-to-connect-monadnocks\/\">WiValley Battles Topography And Budgets To Connect Monadnocks<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2011\/10\/1058204843_32496fe28c-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/topic\/new-hampshire-economy\/\">Your Guide To New Hampshire\u2019s Economy<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>But, Paiste reports, Fairpoint isn&#8217;t exactly free to do what it would like.\u00a0 If the telecom wants to use the money for broadband, the PUC ruled it will have to have a plan submitted by the end of the month for putting the funds in an escrow account.\u00a0 That&#8217;s basically insurance that the money will actually go to enhancing internet coverage, rather than hitting corporate coffers.\u00a0 And among other things, Fairpoint will be legally bound to keep its word, <a title=\"NH House Mulls Deregulating Phone Service\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/04\/18\/nh-house-mulls-deregulating-phone-service\/\" target=\"_blank\">no matter what comes down from the legislature in the future<\/a>.\u00a0 Paiste writes the company will also have to &#8220;commit to expanding broadband in unserved areas of New Hampshire within FairPoint\u2019s franchise anywhere in the state, not just in the North Country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If Fairpoint ultimately agrees to the arrangement, it will have to pay whatever&#8217;s left in the escrow account back to customers as rebates.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, the company&#8217;s reviewing the PUC ruling.\u00a0 Fairpoint will also have to rebate the penalties if\u00a0 it doesn&#8217;t submit a plan for the escrow account, or decides against the commission&#8217;s terms.\u00a0 If it does agree with the ruling, Fairpoint says it will add another $500,000 to broadband expansion, giving the project a grand total of $3.3 million in funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The question of whether to offer customers rebates for bad service or expand broadband access throughout the state is now pretty much for Fairpoint to decide. The telecom company faces $2.8 million in fines related to a series of service problems that cropped-up back in 2009.\u00a0 Rather than return the fees to customers, Fairpoint asked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":8324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[570,268,566,565,515],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8334,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8323\/revisions\/8334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}