FairPoint has taken its fair share of criticism for their takeover of Verizon’s rural New England operations, some of which was fair, and some of which could be considered as ‘piling on.’ Post bankruptcy, FairPoint is citing progress and now regularly publishes ‘Broadband Bulletins,’ which updates their progress in upgrading former Verizon territories for broadband.
Their latest report cites progress in Vermont, which imposed a June 30, 2011 deadline for broadband improvements in the state, as a part of approving the Verizon transaction. FairPoint committed $66 million to the effort and now cites progress.
“We’ve done an incredible amount of work in a very, very short amount of time,” FairPoint Vermont President Michael Smith told the VT Digger website.
FairPoint labels this project “VantagePoint,” and it includes upgrading fiber backbones throughout the state (and all of New England) for both better broadband access and cell tower backhaul. FairPoint has committed to ADSL2+ for broadband access and is promising top download speeds of 15 Mb/s to those who are lucky enough to be within adequate reach of their broadband access nodes.
FairPoint appears committed to copper for the long haul in these territories. Smith tells VT Digger, with a very optimistic tone, “copper wires will be able to carry over 100 Mbps in the future.” Although that optimistic prediction fails to shed light on exactly what percentage of copper customers will be in close enough proximity to receive those speeds over a DSL copper loop.
