FairPoint completes N.H. broadband expansion effort, reaches 95% of access lines

FairPoint Communications (Nasdaq: FRP) reached another milestone in its northern New England broadband expansion effort, completing neccessary network upgrades to make broadband services available to 95 percent of its access lines in New Hampshire.

In New Hampshire, FairPoint invested over $72 million to expand broadband availability.

Since 2009, the service provider has upgraded its network to deliver broadband service in over 215 of the state's communities, making it available to more than 100,000 additional homes and businesses.

The expanded broadband service is all supported over its Vantage Point IP/MPLS network, which also serves as the backbone for its growing base of business Ethernet customers.

During the past six years, the service provider said it invested more than $700 million to upgrade its network to broadband availability throughout northern New England.

Besides New Hampshire, FairPoint recently announced that it connected more than 10,400 homes and businesses in Maine alone during the past year.

FairPoint has made these expansions happen through a mix of its own capital and $3.3 million in Connect America Fund Phase I funding from the FCC it received last August. By accepting the CAF-I funds, the service provider can extend broadband services to 1,284 unserved locations that have no access at all and 4,211 locations that can only get access to dial-up Internet connections.

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
FairPoint extended broadband to over 10,400 Maine locations in 2013
FairPoint wraps $6.6M extension project targeting 20 Vermont communities
FairPoint expands broadband to 600 homes in Maine, New Hampshire
FairPoint stakeholder Maglan Capital wants bigger presence on telco's board
FairPoint's Ethernet service revenues jump to $16.4 million