A former telecom executive said he was fired after he accused his employer of improperly billing a key business customer more than $3 million.

Nicolas Keeler sued Pacific Lightnet Inc. in state Circuit Court last week, alleging the company charged Verizon Wireless Inc. more than $85,000 a month for services it did not provide.

"It's surprising that a company would act this way," said Keeler, who had served as Pacific Lightnet's vice president of sales and marketing until he was fired in May 2006.

Pacific Lightnet, which provides local dial-up high-speed Internet and long-distance services for thousands of residential and business customers, leased bandwidth to Verizon on its undersea fiber-optic cable which connects O'ahu, Maui and the Big Island.

Pacific Lightnet was supposed to lease additional bandwidth for Verizon on Southern Cross Cable Network's massive trans-Pacific undersea cable, which connects Hawai'i, the Mainland, Australia and New Zealand. The additional bandwidth is for a backup system in case of an outage in the main cable.

According to Keeler's suit, Pacific Lightnet never had access to Southern Cross' cable but continued to bill Verizon $85,000 a month.

Keeler said he lost his $100,000-a-year job after he informed Pacific Lightnet executives of the improper billing. He said the company made no effort to correct the problem and has not made any refunds to Verizon.

Pacific Lightnet executives declined comment. A spokeswoman for Verizon also had no response.

Pacific Lightnet is a home-grown telecom company with 25,000 business customers and more than 6,000 Internet subscribers. The company is being sold to a group of local and Mainland investors.

The buyers, SK Telecom Holdings LP, include members of the company's local management team and Los Angeles-based private equity investors Peter and Robert Seidler.