Another day, and the problems just kept on coming.  Yesterday readers saw what happens when a small independent phone company is wholly unprepared for the task before it – to absorb three states’ worth of telephone and Internet customers into a company that used to serve just a few hundred thousand people.  Lost e-mail, Internet service down, multi-hour wait times on “live chat” support, and up to six weeks waiting for a service call.  With thousands of e-mail accounts apparently non-functional, the governor of New Hampshire had to personally intervene to get them to fix the problems.  Some desperate customers turned to the news media for help.  WMUR in Manchester found itself acting as an intermediary between FairPoint Communications and the customers who found it impossible to reach them directly for days on end:

[flv width=”480″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMUR Manchester Thousands Of Accounts Lost In Transition 2-4-09.flv[/flv]

One woman spent two and half hours waiting in the queue for an online support chat… and then it kicked her off.  She’s livid, and so are many other New England customers flooding WMUR’s newsroom with e-mails and videos, which a station reporter took directly to the FairPoint CEO.

[flv width=”480″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WMUR Manchester – Fairpoint CEO Discusses Problems 2-6-09.flv[/flv]

The CEO’s statement that FairPoint bills were about to go out for the first time, warning there “would be problems” would be prophetic.  More on that later.

In Vermont, Public Service Commissioner Dave O’Brien, who was “confident” about FairPoint in an earlier report, has finally had some second thoughts.  As the e-mail and Internet access failures extend into a second week, his phone line is swamped with complaint calls from customers just like one woman in Barre whose DSL service has been “on again, off again” since the switch, and she can’t reach anyone at the company to complain.  WCAX in Burlington has the story:

[flv width=”368″ height=”208″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCAX Burlington Customers Complain of More FairPoint Troubles 2-11-09.flv[/flv]

The company promised to get a grip on the e-mail problem into the second week, but the problems just kept on coming.  Now two weeks into the mess, WABI in Bangor, Maine reports residents are still having problems.

[flv width=”320″ height=”240″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WABI Bangor E-Mail Nightmare 2-13-09.flv[/flv]

Could you survive without e-mail for three weeks?  FairPoint customers had to learn the answer the hard way.  In this report from WCSH in Portland, three weeks after the transition from Verizon to FairPoint, customers were -still- having problems.

[flv width=”480″ height=”360″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WCSH Portland E-Mail Nightmare for FairPoint Customers 02-18-09.flv[/flv]

Tomorrow: Businesses start threatening to move out of state because they can’t get a phone line installed from FairPoint.  Other customers find their phone lines disconnected, can’t get phone lines installed even after a month waiting, and Comcast cashes in.