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In NH, FairPoint transition blame spread to PUC, contractors
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Local citizens and newspapers in New Hampshire are starting to look beyond FairPoint's transition problems to state regulators and contractors that supervised its purchase of Verizon's landline business in northern New England. FairPoint has run a gauntlet of criticism for its problems after taking over from Verizon, including e-mail and Internet outages, poor customer service, billing issues and other transition-related problems.
Among the parties now getting more scrutiny are Capgemini, the company that designed FairPoint's computer system; Liberty Consulting Group, the company hired by New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to monitor FairPoint's progress in taking over Verizon's network and operations; and, the PUC itself.
In January, Liberty Consulting had assured public utilities officials that FairPoint was ready to switch over from Verizon's computer systems onto the Capgemini systems, but tens of thousands of customers have encountered problems with billing systems, service requests, and an e-mail glitch/oversight that left thousands of customers with no access for days to weeks.
Since the switchover citizens around the state have written in to local newspapers to criticize the PUC for signing off on the acquisition in the first place.
Finger pointing amongst the PUC, Liberty Consulting, and FairPoint has yet to be sorted out. The PUC says it was dependent upon Liberty Consulting - hired by all three states to keep a watch on FairPoint -- to make sure the phone company was ready for the cutover. Liberty assured the PUC that FairPoint was ready in late January, but later issued a report saying that FairPoint's problems were worse than the company had disclosed and accused FairPoint executives of making faulty and misleading statements to minimize the problems.
Liberty and Capgemini didn't return phone calls to the local press.
For more:
- Nashua Telegraph calls out NH PUC. Article.
Related articles
N.H. sets new requirements for FairPoint - FierceTelecom
Maine PUC: FairPoint generates largest number of complaints ...
FairPoint expects normal New England operations by June
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | July 21, 2009 - 3:40am
I worked as a contractor at Fairpoint during the cutover. Much of the blame lies with CapGemini. They employ nearly 100% Indian H1B-visa workers. There are virtually no Americans working for CapGemini. Their computer skills (or lack thereof) are now a matterof public record. There is nobody employed by CapGemini that has any experience working in Telecommunications. Thanks to CapGemini, state residents, American citizens, working as independent contractors that were not employed by CapGemini were all let go by FairPoint. These workers now collect unemployment from the state. This is a microcosm of the problem facing this country. We need to outlaw H1B visa workers, and stem the tidal wave of Indian workers coming into the US for cheap wages that quite obviously lack any skills and experience in regards to computer programming or telecommunications. The state and this country should be ashamed.
Posted by Anonymous | June 2, 2009 - 10:48am
Malarky! To begin with, Verizon had to find a small inadequately sized company for the northern New England area to pull off this deal so they would not have to pay a $300 million+ in taxes on the profits they made via the Reverse Morris Trust. So both Fairpoint and Verizon hire outside markenting and legal teams to propogandize the sale as "good for New England" while greasing the palms and pet projects of key local polls and public officials. Some aspects of this transaction may or may not be ILL-legal(who really knows-its never been fully investigated by anyone that I'm aware of), it does seem to show a lack of ethics(i.e. selling off your property to someone you know will fail in order skirt around having to pay taxes on your profits). A win-win for Verizon and for the execs of both corportions who get the bonuses. A lose-lose for the customers and employees who end up with another bankrupt Verizon spin-off. Business ethics does not appear to be part of the Verizon corporate culture.
Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2009 - 8:29pm
Amazingly, as if by design, no one is holding the news media responsible for making much ado of this... The tens of thousands of complaints account for fewer than 1 percent of total people served by Fairpoint. Headlines don't get made by stating the obvious, "99+% of All Fairpoint Customers Pleased With Service"
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