American News World - News And Technology

Today announced it has filed its provisional notice of cutover readiness with the Public Utility Commissions (PUC) in New Hampshire and Maine and the Department of Public Service (PSB) in Vermont. The notice was filed after Liberty Consulting Group indicated in its November 12th monthly Status Report that FairPoint had met substantially all of the criteria required to cut over at the end of January. The state PUCs/PSB will now hold technical conferences with FairPoint and, if necessary, or at the request of intervening parties, public hearings. Subsequent to the hearings, FairPoint expects to file its irrevocable notice of cutover with Verizon.

In its report, Liberty stated FairPoint needed additional attention in one area (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) testing), so FairPoint today also filed its rebuttal to the Liberty Monthly Status Report indicating that, in its opinion, it had met the acceptance criteria. However, FairPoint agreed to complete the additional CLEC tests recommended by Liberty.

Gene Johnson, chairman and CEO of FairPoint stated, “A tremendous effort was put forth in order to get to this point. While our work is not done, I thank the employees of FairPoint and Capgemini U.S. LLC (FairPoint’s lead integration partner) and Verizon for making these efforts to date. As we move closer to the expected end of January cutover date, we look forward to being that much closer to better serving the residents and businesses of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont with new broadband and voice products, services and bundles through our approximately 60 new, state-of-the-art fully integrated systems.”

The Vermont Public Service Board has scheduled a status conference later this week and the Public Service Commission staffs in Maine and New Hampshire have a joint technical session scheduled on November 17. The PUCs/PSB may choose to conduct hearings on the matter later this month and dates are being held for that purpose.

source http://www.fairpoint.com