Verizon Workers Protest Telephone Deal

March 3, 2007, By Caroline Cornish

Hundreds of union workers from all over New England were in Portland's Monument square Saturday, protesting the proposed deal between FairPoint Communications and Verizon.

FairPoint is looking to buy Verizon's phone lines in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire for $2.7 billion. The union workers want all 3 states' Public Utilities Commission to stop the sale.

Fairpoint relies on DSL for its high speed internet, and the union workers said the technology is outdated. They said fiber is the future. They also believe the small company has too much debt to take on a deal this size.

Jenn Nappi of IBEW Local 2327 said, "We don't want to be roadkill on the information superhighway. We want to move forward. We don't want to allow a small company to take us backwards. If Verizon doesn't want to stay, they need to go back to the table and find a viable buyer."

FairPoint's chief operating officer, Peter Nixon, said the deal is good for workers because the company plans to create 600 more jobs in the three states. He also said customers will benefit when the company expands high speed internet service to more of Maine. He said there could be some fiber coming to Maine, but it's unlikely most residential customers would see it. He defended DSL, saying, "DSL is still a very appropriate, very modern, viable technology... We will continue to increase the speed of DSL as the needs of our customers change."