Fairpoint is liable to fall into the same trap AT&T fell into after divestiture. AT&T got the most profitable lines of business in the Bell System break up. They got telephone sets, PBX's, personal and business computers, Bell Labs and long distance. In those days the cost of a long distance phone call was astronomical compared to today. Management at AT&T thought the price of a long distance call would remain static due to the high barrier to entry. But in doing that, they forgot Adam Smith's Wealth of nations... where there are great profits, people will pile in until there are no profits. Management ran with their assumption and got rid of all the physical lines of their businesses as low profit investment. As it turns out, those physical lines, management at AT&T got rid of, have been hugely profitable and disruptive, while the one line they hung their hats on became hugely unprofitable, and AT&T went bankrupt becoming a shell company. Now SBC has bought the name and is Verizon's only real competitor.