FairPoint Communications 2009 Annual Report Download - page 25

Table of Contents
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 local exchange companies has a long history in the communities it serves. It is our policy to maintain and enhance the strong identity
and reputation that each LEC 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.
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 economic development in the communities we serve.
Many of the companies acquired by us traditionally have not devoted a substantial amount of their operating budget to sales and marketing
activities. After acquiring such LECs, 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, 2009, we had 915 employees engaged in sales, marketing and customer service.

Our approach to back-office and operational support systems focuses on implementing 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. We transitioned to approximately 60 new systems for our Northern New England operations on February 9, 2009.
As of December 31, 2008, all of our Legacy FairPoint companies had converted to a single outsourced billing platform. We are currently
outsourcing certain systems integration and support services. Our recently acquired Northern New England operations were converted to larger scale
back-office and operations support systems as of January 30, 2009. Prior to January 30, 2009, billing for our Northern New England operations was
performed by Verizon under the Transition Services Agreement.

Our LEC networks consists of eight signal transfer points, 85 host central offices and 414 remote central offices, all with advanced digital
switches. 99.5% of our central offices are served by fiber optic facilities which we own. The primary interconnection with other incumbent carriers is
also fiber optic. Our outside plant consists of both fiber optic and copper distribution networks.
Our fiber optic transport system is primarily a Synchronous Optical Network ("SONET") capable of satisfying customer demand for high
bandwidth transport services. This system supports advanced services including Asynchronous Transfer Mode ("ATM"), Frame Relay and IP
transport, facilitating delivery of advanced services as demand warrants.
In our LEC markets, DSL-enabled access technology has been deployed to provide significant broadband capacity to our customers. As of
December 31, 2009, nearly all of our central offices are capable of providing broadband services through cable modem, wireless broadband and DSL
technology.
Rapid and significant changes in technology are expected in the communications industry. Our future success will depend, in part, on our ability to
anticipate and adapt to technological changes. With this in mind, we are in the process of building an advanced Next Generation Network for our
Northern New England operations. The Next Generation Network is an IP / Multiple Protocol Label Switched
21