KATE DAVIDSON
Concord Monitor staff

Lawyers for state agencies and utilities have spent almost a year considering what might happen if Verizon sells its traditional telephone service in Northern New England. Critics have scrutinized FairPoint Communications - the company that wants to buy the landlines for $2.72 billion - and wondered if the small, North Carolina-based phone company has the resources or expertise to run a successful operation.

The order provides a glimpse into service quality issues in New Hampshire, but it hardly paints a complete picture, Hatfield said. Unlike in Maine and Vermont, where service quality reports are readily accessible, the reports and investigation are not available to the public in New Hampshire.

Although New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law allows public access to the proceedings and findings of any board or commission of any state agency, Kreis cited an exemption to the law that prohibits him from discussing the service quality investigation.

RSA 378-43, part of a utilities law titled "Information Not Subject to the Right-to-Know Law," was passed in 1999, after Verizon took over phone service in the state. The law allows a telephone utility to request that any information or records provided to the Public Utilities Commission be sealed if the records relate to competitive services and would reveal trade secrets, confidential research, financial information or commercial information.