Vermont Agency Presses for Automatic Bill Credits From Consolidated
The Vermont Public Utility Commission should require Consolidated Communications to pay customers an automatic enhanced bill credit of $5 daily for troubles not cleared in 24 hours, the Vermont Department of Public Service said Friday in docket 18-3231-PET. That will…
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“appropriately press Consolidated to stanch many of the service quality and performance problems that have plagued the company since merging with FairPoint in 2017,” it said. “Although the Department appreciates that Consolidated has to compete at a statewide level, with many of its landline customers, Consolidated is the only game in town where adequate service quality is vital.” The incumbent’s “lackluster performance reflects a much larger trend that has existed since Consolidated and its predecessors entered the competitive telecommunications market in Vermont 20 years ago: a chronic failure … to maintain adequate service quality in areas of the state with no competitive voice alternative,” the department said. “This failure has been met with complacency and no effective approach to improving service quality in the last mile where Consolidated has no competition and therefore no incentive to maintain adequate service quality for some of its most vulnerable customers.” In a separate brief Friday, Consolidated argued that it has improved significantly. “Consolidated does not dispute that it faced particular challenges in the second half of 2018 meeting the cleared in 24 hours metric and that its repair times and customer complaint levels were unsatisfactory,” but the carrier “has undertaken considerable and comprehensive efforts to improve its service quality by making improvements in every aspect of its business,” it said. Improvements include “adding technicians in Vermont, hiring more outside contractors, improving its dispatch system, cross training employees, adding tools for technicians, adding processes to ensure accountability throughout the organization, better tracking and monitoring trouble tickets, and investing in upgrades to the outside plant,” it said. Consolidated officials defended recent problems at a hearing last month (see 1910170052).