FairPoint Communications 2005 Annual Report Download - page 9

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Our marketing approach emphasizes customer-oriented sales, marketing and service. We believe most communications companies devote their resources
and attention primarily toward customers in more densely populated markets. To the extent we experience competition for any of our services, we seek to
differentiate ourselves from the competitors providing such services by providing a superior level of service to each of our customers.
Each of our rural local exchange carriers has a long history in the communities it serves. It is our policy to maintain and enhance the strong identity and
reputation that each rural local exchange carrier enjoys in its markets, as we believe this is a significant competitive advantage. As we market new services, we
will seek to continue to utilize our identity in order to attain higher recognition with potential customers.
To demonstrate our commitment to the markets we serve, we maintain offices in many of the population centers within our service territories. These
offices are typically staffed by local residents and provide customer support services in the community. We believe that a local presence helps facilitate a direct
connection to the community, which improves customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In addition, our strategy is to enhance our communications services by offering comprehensive bundling of services and deploying new technologies to
build upon the strong reputation we enjoy in our markets and to further promote rural economic development in the rural communities we serve.
Many of the rural local exchange carriers acquired by us traditionally have not devoted a substantial amount of their operating budget to sales and
marketing activities. After acquiring such rural local exchange carriers, we typically change this practice to provide additional support for existing products
and services as well as to support the introduction of new services. As of December 31, 2005, we had 254 employees engaged in sales, marketing and
customer service.
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Our approach to billing and operational support systems focuses on implementing best-of-class applications that allow consistent communication and
coordination throughout our entire organization. Our objective is to improve profitability by reducing individual company costs through the sharing of best
practices, centralization or standardization of functions and processes, and deployment of technologies and systems that provide for greater efficiencies and
profitability.
As of December 31, 2005, 17 of our operating companies had converted to a single outsourced billing platform. On October 7, 2005, we learned that the
billing service bureau used by us for these 17 operating companies had contracted to sell the software underlying our billing system and agreed not to add any
future customers to its service bureau platform. In addition to the short term difficulties experienced during the billing conversion, this potential sale raised
concerns about the long-term reliability of the service bureau. On November 7, 2005, we reached an agreement with this outsourced service bureau to transition
to another service provider of our choice by December 31, 2006. Subsequent to reaching this agreement, we selected Mid America Computer Corporation, or
MACC, as our new provider of billing services. We expect to complete the conversion of 17 of our operating companies, or approximately two thirds of our
access lines, by the middle of 2006 and the remaining companies by early to mid 2007.
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Our rural local exchange carrier networks consist of central office hosts and remote sites, all with advanced digital switches (primarily manufactured by
Nortel and Siemens) and operating with current software. The outside plant consists of transport and distribution delivery networks connecting our host
central office with remote central offices and ultimately with our customers. We own fiber optic cable,
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