The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved FairPoint’s purchase of Verizon's wireline operations in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The deal was proposed a year ago. It was opposed by consumer groups and others based on the suspicions that Verizon was spinning the operations off to avoid having to upgrade the largely rural systems, and that FairPoint lacked the means to perform such upgrades – or at least that FairPoint could not have performed the upgrades as quickly as Verizon might have, had it elected to do so.

Verizon’s official position, attributed to its SVP of Federal Regulatory Affairs Susanne A. Guyer, was to applaud the FCC approval and assert “the clear benefits this transaction holds for consumers and businesses in the three-state region.”

The deal still requires regulatory approval from the three states.

FairPoint, based in Charlotte, N.C., owns and operates 30 local exchange companies (LECs) in 18 states.

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