To those of us who want good telephone service, here is a sad tale. FairPoint Communications has an office in Portland called the Customer Excellence Center. Staffers purportedly aid and assist in customer service. In my opinion, they are a bad joke on what a real telephone company should be providing.

When we as customers are stonewalled yet again and in desperation contact the Public Utilities Commission and Office of the Public Advocate, we get a similar story that they cannot do much until the Legislature creates and accepts a five-year service plan of what a telephone company should provide.

What is happening is just more buck passing while we as customers suffer from terrible service. FairPoint has no clue about how to be a telephone company. Its customer service is a sham! Why can’t government carry out what they initially said they would do to protect its citizens from such companies?

The PUC initially sat on its hands and let then-Verizon run the state telephone infrastructure into the ground and then allowed FairPoint to take over without safeguards to protect what little was left to serve customers. Why should we have to pay extra to cover what the government and FairPoint have so poorly done?

Yes, FairPoint is a bad company, but government watchdogs are still asleep at their posts. Shameful!

George A. Fogg

North Yarmouth