Summary
1. At the end of the day, the people working at public service commissions are politicians. 2. They will milk the negative image of what has been essentially a major success story for all its worth. 3. However, when state regulators cross the line and can potentially remove the executives of a corporation, it is unconstitutional – not to mention the US free market system is further at risk.
Analysis
How does it make any sense for individuals that are part of a government entity, many of whom have no experience in running a business, to arbitrarily decide that the management of a company should be fired? And just which people would replace them? Folks with less intimacy with the network problems and operations history? How would they even begin to do a better job than the current leadership?
Of the three states involved, it is not surprising that Vermont is leading the way. Vermont always seems to be looking for any way to advance socialism.
It is not as if FairPoint is failing to make progress. And it has been an extremely short time since the cutover. FairPoint will probably be in a much more favorable position within the next several months. It is likely that some of the bureaucrats even expect that result themselves – but that is only going to make them rush even faster for these unnecessary draconian measures.
