Deep Freeze Leads To FairPoint Internet Outages

CONCORD, NH — Northern New England has been in a deep freeze for a couple of days now – including non-wind chill factor temperatures way below zero, like the -17 degrees below zero that Concord residents woke up to this morning. The deep freeze brought delayed school openings across the state as students returned from the holiday week. However, it also appears to be bringing problems to FairPoint Communications Internet service in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.

A company spokesperson has not responded to Patch’s inquiry about outages and the company’s social media accounts haven’t offered any reasoning for the outages.

But a few customers are reporting that the company is blaming the cold temps – specifically, frozen wires – on outages in the region. Customers to the company’s call centers report that FairPoint – now owned by a company called Consolidated Communications out of Illinois – was searching to find the exact location of the problem.

DownDetector.com is reporting a number of outages around the region with large swaths of outages across southern New Hampshire, in northwest and southeast Vermont, as well as southeastern Maine. As of 1 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2018, the outage chart had darkened in southern New Hampshire compared to the chart issued at around 11:30 a.m.

New Hampshire Patch will update this post when more information becomes available.