frontiercommunications

CPUC queues up $24 million subsidy for 11 California broadband projects

4 November 2019 by Steve Blum
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Mobile home park

Eleven broadband infrastructure projects by four companies will be considered by the California Public Utilities Commission next month. Draft resolutions approving California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) subsidies for 11 out of the 13 grant proposals submitted in the May application window were posted on Thursday. The drafts are linked below.

Making the CPUC’s new six month deadline for processing applications is a major milestone for staff, and they deserve congratulations. In the past, reviews have sometimes dragged on for years, with endless and often meritless challenges allowed from marginal broadband providers who wanted to fence off service-poor communities.… More

CPUC approves DSL upgrade subsidy for Frontier at $4,700 per home

27 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Weimar casf project

The California Public Utilities Commission approved a $693,000 grant to Frontier Communications from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for a DSL equipment upgrade in the Placer County community of Weimar earlier this month. It was a considerably smaller grant than Frontier requested.

The project originally included the somewhat larger town of Colfax and called for a CASF subsidy of $2.3 million to reach 1,400 homes that, Frontier said, lacked access to broadband service at California’s pathetic minimum of 6 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds.… More

Faster broadband gains subscribers but slow service loses them, CenturyLink says

22 August 2019 by Steve Blum
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Centurylink building

CenturyLink confirmed earlier this month that faster broadband service is the pathway to keeping subscribers on board, and gaining new ones.

In the company’s presentation outlining its second quarter 2019 financial results, it noted that it lost a total of 56,000 consumer-grade broadband customers. However, when that top level figure is broken out by speed, the company gained 48,000 subscribers at the 100 Mbps download speed level or better. The negative subscriber numbers were all at lower speeds: a net loss of 26,000 subscribers who were taking service at speeds levels of from 20 Mbps to less than 100 Mbps, and a loss of 78,000 subscribers who were buying service slower than 20 Mbps.… More

With Frontier in free fall, California needs a Plan B

Frontier stock chart 8aug2019

Frontier Communications’ strategy of upgrading fiber speeds for high income, urban customers, and letting poor, rural ones rely on slow, wireless broadband systems didn’t seem to make an impression on Wall Street. The company’s stock price lost nearly 25% of its already diminished value after the release of second quarter 2019 results on Tuesday.

Even before this latest crash, a study by the California Public Utilities Commission concluded that Frontier is sinking in California, and it’s time to start thinking about what happens next…

While Frontier’s priorities are in maintaining and growing its [legacy telephone] properties, the company’s financial resources have become so deteriorated as to threaten its ongoing ability to pursue these priorities going forward.

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Frontier CEO confirms affluent, urban communities to get 1,000X better broadband than poor, rural ones

Frontier 2q2019 broadband results

On Tuesday, Frontier Communications’ CEO confirmed the findings of a California Public Utilities Commission study that concluded that Frontier (as well as AT&T) is “disinvesting in infrastructure overall”, and the disinvestment is “most pronounced in the more rural and low-income service areas”. The company released its financial results for the second quarter of this year on Tuesday, announcing a $5.3 billion loss for the three months and 71,000 fewer broadband subscribers.

Most of the lost accounts – 46,000 – were DSL customers, served, at least in California, via decaying copper networks Frontier acquired from Verizon.… More

When Californians are trapped in monopoly telecom markets, AT&T and Frontier take the money and run

24 July 2019 by Steve Blum
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Leaning pole

Competition matters. When telephone or cable companies face a competitive threat – either from each other or from an independent Internet service provider, they respond by upgrading infrastructure and service, and by cranking up the volume on promotional discounts. The converse is true: no competition means no infrastructure investment or service upgrades or marketing love.

That’s a lesson I’ve learned time and again with municipal and independent broadband projects. When a city or an independent credibly threatens to enter the market, incumbents respond.… More

AT&T redlines poor and rural Californians because it can, Frontier because it can’t afford otherwise, CPUC study says

23 July 2019 by Steve Blum
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History of the World, Part 1 - Piss Boy

Corporate choices made by AT&T and Verizon, and Frontier Communications’ dire financial condition created the growing divide between relatively modern telecoms infrastructure in affluent urban and suburban communities, and the decaying infrastructure in poor and rural ones. The result is “deteriorating service quality”, “persistent disinvestment”, an “investment focus on higher income communities” and an “increased focus on areas most heavily impacted by competition”, according to a study done for the California Public Utilities Commission by a Boston-based consulting company.… More

AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Frontier, Digital Path challenge California broadband subsidy proposals

6 June 2019 by Steve Blum
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Santa barbara county pole 29oct2015

Of the 13 new projects proposed for construction subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) in May, only four are unchallenged: three proposed by Charter Communications in Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, and one proposed by a wireless Internet service provider in Sonoma County. The rest face objections from incumbent Internet services providers that want to protect their turf.

Ten challenges, plus a snarky letter from AT&T, were filed against broadband projects being reviewed for CASF grant eligibility by yesterday’s deadline.… More

California broadband subsidy grants trickle in at the deadline

2 May 2019 by Steve Blum
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Verizon taft 2dec2014

There was no last minute rush yesterday as the window closed for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband infrastructure grant applications. Only two companies submitted a total of three project proposals. It’s possible that other applications were submitted but not publicly distributed as required, but for now three, plus five from Saturday, are what we have. I’ll take a deeper dive into all of them later, here’s the short version for now:

Frontier submitted two applications, an $11.8 million proposal to extend service to 146 homes in the Lassen and Modoc County communities of Alturas, Ravendale and Standish, and a $1.7 million proposal to reach 235 homes in and/or around Taft in Kern County.… More

Don’t expect fast rural broadband from AT&T or Frontier, lobbyists tell CPUC

Ernestine

Judging from presentations made by AT&T and Frontier Communications lobbyists at a California Public Utilities Commission workshop on Monday, the companies have no plans for significant upgrades to rural broadband service, comparable to urban improvements, despite taxpayer subsidies. Which doesn’t bode well for a $2 trillion infrastructure spending deal announced yesterday in Washington, D.C.

Rural broadband infrastructure was one of the few specific items that came out of a meeting yesterday between president Donald Trump, house speaker Nancy Pelosi and senate democratic leader Chuck Schumer.… More