At the time, Carlyle's purchase of Verizon Hawaii was quite controversial with the public and competitive local exchange carriers, Time Warner Telecom and Pacific LightNet, who had doubts about Carlyle's lack of experience operating telecommunication businesses, and their intentions as to raising rates, upgrading the network with optical fiber as former-parent Verizon was doing on the mainland, and possible resale of the business in just a few years, all seen as being detrimental to the public interest.

Issues ranged from extremely long hold times to speak to representatives, to duplicate and delayed bills.

In November 2009, Cerberus Capital Management announced to the bankruptcy court that it had acquired $7.6 million of Hawaiian Telcom's debt.

[17] The company's plan to reduce its debt by more than $800 million was approved by Judge Lloyd King of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on November 13, 2009.

[19][20] On June 24, 2011, The State of Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs issued a 15-year cable franchise license to Hawaiian Telcom, thus ending Oceanic Time Warner's 35-year monopoly as the state's sole cable TV provider.

In 2014, Hawaiian Telcom launched 500 megabits per second broadband after investing $125 million in its fiber optic network.

[24] The sale received the approval of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in April 2018 and was completed in July 2018.

Following the completion of the sale to Cincinnati Bell, the company announced that John Komeiji had been promoted to the role of president and general manager.