By DENIS PAISTE
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff

CONCORD – More than a year after a $2.7 billion telecommunications deal was proposed, the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission today gave final approval for the transfer of Verizon Communications’ regional landline phone business to FairPoint Communications.

PUC commissioners, on a split vote, cleared the way for North Carolina-based FairPoint to take over Verizon’s 1.7 million telephone access lines in northern New England, ending a year of regulatory wrangling and public testimony over the future of rural Internet accessand phone service in Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.

The order comes a month after the PUC staff reached agreement with FairPoint and Verizon, and follows orders in Maine and Vermont approving the amended $2.4 billion deal.

In today’s order by the PUC, which was released around 6 p.m., Chairman Thomas B. Getz and Commissioner Clifton Below joined in approval, with Commissioner Graham Morrison dissenting.

“Based on our analysis of all the evidence, including the substantial concessions made by FairPoint and Verizon in the settlement, we find that FairPoint is financially qualified to assume Verizon’s public utility operations in New Hampshire,” Getz and Below wrote.

Under the order, FairPoint must: establish an external trust fund for pension liabilities for Verizon workers it takes onto its payroll; backstop line losses up to $30 million for two years; and seek PUC permission before moving a new FairPoint call center in Littleton anddata center in Manchester.

“We are certainly pleased that they approved the transaction, but we have not had a chance to review any of the proposed conditions,” FairPoint’s Executive Vice President for Business Development Walter Leach said.

In his dissent, Commissioner Graham Morrison wrote, “It is my conclusion that this change in ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) ownership at this time is not in the best interest of the state and its residents as Verizon is far better positioned than is FairPoint tomanage the task ahead and the changes to come.”

PUC chief legal counsel Don Kreis said, “Everybody here worked very hardon this case.”

He said New Hampshire’s approval was the final hurdle for FairPoint and Verizon.