Details on the proposed $2.7 billion FairPoint Communications\u27 buyout of Verizon

Details on the proposed $2.7 billion FairPoint Communications\u27 buyout of Verizon\u27s telephone lines and systems in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. If the proposed merger is approved, the quality of land-line telephone service in northern New England will depend on FairPoint\u27s ability to make good on certain financial assumptions. However, documents filed with the Public Utilities Commission suggest that the sale price is far too high, and that FairPoint has no plan in place to pay down $318 million in debt over the next seven years. FairPoint\u27s internal financial projections admit that money will be so tight that success depends on such unrealistic ideas as the price of gasoline remaining constant for the next seven years, and that unions will accept zero-percent raises for the next seven years