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Workers, Business Deliver 5,000 Postcards to Stop Verizon from Abandoning New Hampshire |
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Opposition continues to grow to the proposed sale of Verizon’s New England telephone lines to FairPoint Communications. One the day before Halloween, a delegation delivered more than 5,000 postcards in a wheelbarrow to Gov. John Lynch (D) asking him to oppose the sale.
Verizon wants to sell its northern New England landlines to FairPoint Communications for $2.7 billion. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the three states must approve the sale. If the sale gets state and federal approval, Verizon will be allowed to abandon all its so-called low-value residential customers in the three states—primarily rural customers—while keeping its more profitable customers, including Big Business and wireless users.
Under the deal, Verizon would qualify for a $600 million tax break and would control 60 percent of FairPoint. FairPoint is a small, highly-leveraged North Carolina-based firm that can only provide dial-up for Internet access or, at best, DSL service, a technology widely regarded as already outdated and inadequate for rural economic development.
David Lang, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire/IAFF, says the sale would not only cut off quality service to thousands of customers, it could endanger their lives.
When seconds count, New Hampshire citizens depend on firefighters and paramedics. In order to assess the risk of any emergency, we need reliable information. We depend upon a high-quality ‘information superhighway’ to obtain it. The proposed FairPoint acquisition of Verizon’s Northern New England properties poses risks that your firefighters do not want to take. We would prefer that ‘Can you hear me now?‘ remain a catchy slogan on television, not a way of life for the people of New Hampshire.
The postcards urge Lynch to “take a strong stand against allowing Verizon to sell its assets to FairPoint.” New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie told the crowd:
If this sale is approved, it could send New Hampshire and its economy backward. Cutting-edge technology is essential to keeping good-paying jobs in the state. FairPoint has not demonstrated it has the resources or the technology to keep pace with today’s world.
Jason Howard, a furniture store owner who joined the delegation, says:
As a small business person and retailer, I depend on the overall health of New Hampshire’s economy. I don’t want state regulators to approve something that could put our state’s future economic development at risk.
Karen Nussbaum, executive director of the AFL-CIO community affiliate Working America, says:
Our canvassers went door to door to collect many of these postcards. The majority of households still hadn’t heard about the proposed sale, but when they did, people understood how risky FairPoint could be and were eager to sign.
Click here for more information on the fight to stop Verizon from abandoning New England.
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