Fairpoint Communications files for bankr…

Fairpoint Communications files for bankruptcy – after Bell Atlantic and GTE merged in 2000 to form Verizon – in 2007 large swaths of local phone service in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine (which were acquired by Bell Atlantic from the earlier NYNEX merger) were transferred to a North Carolina phone company called Fairpoint. People and politicians put pressure on the state regulators to force Verizon to build out high speed internet access into rural areas without the population density to justify the costs and Verizon wanted nothing to do with that process, so they divested their operations in 3 states to Fairpoint. Fairpoint filed today for chapter 11.