FairPoint Communications (Nasdaq: FRP) appears to be finally on the mend. Not only did the beleaguered company finally emerge out of Chapter 11 protection, but now it has met its mandate of bringing broadband services to 83 percent of homes and businesses in its Maine service area.
As of Thursday, the service provider announced that DSL service is available to 83.4 percent of Maine households and businesses. This is slightly above the 83 percent goal it had to meet by the end of 2010 as one of the terms it had to agree to in order to close its acquisition of Verizon's New England phone lines.
Likewise, FairPoint reached its DSL buildout goals in its two other New England states New Hampshire and Vermont. In New Hampshire, the provider reached its 85 percent mark and the 80 percent mark in Vermont by the end of 2010.
Michael Reed, FairPoint's Maine president, said that since FairPoint took over Verizon's New England operations, it "has invested more than $37 million in Maine alone and has increased broadband availability from 68.9 percent to the current 83.4 percent of its customers."
In addition to traditional DSL-based broadband, FairPoint's network investment in Maine drove its fiber-based VantagePoint network to serve its business customers with not only traditional ADSL2+ broadband access, but also Ethernet Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) services.
Now that's its fresh out of Chapter 11 and trading on Nasdaq stock exchange, the key for FairPoint obviously will be in their ability to maintain this new momentum throughout 2011.
For more:
- see the release (PDF)
- Whittier Daily News via AP has this article
Related articles:
Maine PUC determines FairPoint will meet its state broadband rollout goals
FairPoint can't shake the cobwebs off its tarnished New England image
Maine PUC approves FairPoint's reorganization plan
FairPoint's Chapter 11 plan gets support from creditors, lenders