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Media Releases

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2009 Media Releases

July 14, 2009 - The Vermont Department of Public Service filed a “Show Cause” Petition with the Public Service Board, requesting an investigation to determine if FairPoint Communications is capable of continuing its telecommunications in the state.  At stake is the company’s “Certificate of Public Good”, or CPG – which is their license to conduct business as a regulated utility in the state.

2008 Media Releases

December 18, 2008 - The Department of Public Service today released a report detailing the results of a thorough investigation into the causes of an outage that left Vermonters across northern Vermont unable to call 9-1-1 on the morning of September 3, earlier this year. The report concludes that the outage was a result of a series of preventable errors or omissions by FairPoint and Verizon, operating under contract to FairPoint, in implementing system changes requested by the E 9-1-1 Board, which operates the E 9-1-1 system in Vermont. The report also concludes that the E 9-1-1 Board and its contractor, microData, missed opportunities to detect some of these errors before the outage occured.

May 27, 2008 – The Department of Public Service released its public draft of the Comprehensive Energy Plan today, which outlines the state’s efforts to provide affordable energy, environmental responsibility and ongoing reliability.

The wide-ranging report contains more than 70 recommendations and focuses on strategies to maintain Vermont’s relatively low energy costs, including pursuit of long-term contracts with renewable and low-carbon energy providers, continued replacement of the state’s passenger fleet with hybrids and plug-in electric cars and improving energy efficiency in public buildings and homes.

April 16, 2008 - State officials in Vermont, Maine, Nebraska, and North Dakota, in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, praised the FCC for requiring higher build-out requirements for licenses that were part of the recently completed of the 700 MHz spectrum. The group also called for further action by industry participants to aid rural build-out of wireless service in unserved areas.

April 16, 2008 - Safe Digging Month! With the warm weather approaching, Vermonters will be undertaking a wide variety of construction and home improvement jobs while weather permits! This is the perfect opportunity to remember that safety is as important below the ground as it is above.

March 12, 2008 - Pursuant to Act 160, the Vermont Department of Public Service is required to convene public meetings to gather public information and input regarding the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Facility in Vernon, Vermont. The department will be hosting four public meetings and one online conference (to be announced). The department encourages Vermonters to participate in either a meeting or the online conference.