frontiercommunications

CPUC and Frontier must put broadband upgrade cards on the table

3 August 2018 by Steve Blum
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When the California Public Utilities Commission allowed Frontier Communications to buy Verizon’s wireline systems in California, it imposed a long list of conditions, including commitments made as part of settlements reached with organisations that objected to the deal. Some of those obligations required Frontier to upgrade broadband service to more than 800,000 homes.

One of those organisations is the California Emerging Technology Fund, which is embroiled in a dispute with Frontier over nearly every aspect of that settlement.… More

Cable, telcos hit rock bottom in consumer satisfaction rankings

28 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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The broadband industry is pissing off its customers. According to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) telecommunications company rankings, the consumer businesses at the very bottom of the list are subscription television service (a rating of 62 out of 100), Internet service (also 62), video-on-demand service (68) and fixed line telephone service (70).

In other words, the misery caused by your local telco is only exceeded by the pain inflicted by your cable company.… More

CPUC tags Frontier’s service as “chronic failure”, proposes to let it slap itself on the wrist

26 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications failed to meet California phone service repair standards in 2017. It’s supposed to restore service within a certain amount of time 90% of the time in any given month, in every one of its Californian service territories. According to two draft resolutions on the table at the California Public Utilities Commission, two of Frontier’s three subsidiaries missed the mark every single month.

Of the 24 reports, the worst performance was 22% in January 2017, the best was 87% in December 2017.… More

Frontier, CETF broadband adoption deal crashes and burns

16 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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A forced partnership between Frontier Communications and the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) to enroll low income broadband users fell far short of its 200,000 household goal, gaining only 9,173 subscribers over its two and a half year lifespan. That number is one of the few things that Frontier and CETF agree on. Who’s to blame and what comes next are hotly disputed.

It’s uncertain how many of those households were enrolled by CETF. Frontier independently acquired some, if not most, of those new subs through its normal sales channels.… More

CPUC approves FTTH grants, but says Frontier needs skin in the game

13 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications will get $2.7 million from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) for two fiber to the home projects. One is in the Imperial County towns of Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach, and the other in Lytle Creek, in the mountains of San Bernardino County. The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved the subsidies at its meeting yesterday, and declined to add another $600,000 as demanded by Frontier.

At least for now.… More

CPUC votes today on Frontier’s California cash grab

12 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications isn’t getting any sympathy yet from the California Public Utilities Commission. Commissioners are scheduled to vote this morning on grants for two southern California fiber to the home projects, in Lytle Creek, in the mountains of San Bernardino County, and Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach in Imperial County. The subsidies would come from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF).

You might think that Frontier would be happy with a gift of $2.7 million of taxpayer money, but it isn’t.… More

Frontier tells CPUC give us all the money!

11 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications isn’t happy with the bonus that California Public Utilities Commission staff wants to bestow on it. Instead, Frontier is demanding the CPUC pay the entire cost of two fiber to the home projects in outlying areas of California.

Frontier applied for two grants from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), one for $1.8 million in the San Bernardino County mountain community of Lytle Creek, and the other for $1.5 million in two towns – Desert Shores and Salton Sea Beach – in Imperial County.… More

AT&T sees Frontier’s two buck phone suck, then raises TV prices by $5

7 July 2018 by Steve Blum
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It might be the least surprising telecoms story of 2018: AT&T is raising prices in a sneaky cash grab similar to what Frontier did last year. AT&T raised the “administrative fee” it tacks on to bills from 76¢ to $1.99 per month. That’s on top of whatever price it tells consumers they’re going to pay.

According to a story by Aaron Pressman in Fortune, AT&T’s explanation is that it pays for “items like cell site maintenance and interconnection between carriers”.… More

Unless it's AT&T or Verizon, telco capital investment is at life support levels

13 April 2018 by Steve Blum
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As with subscriber numbers, there’s a big gap between the two biggest telcos in the U.S. – AT&T and Verizon – and the rest of the field when it comes to capital spending. Both companies are planning multi-billion dollar investments in their networks in 2018, according to a story by Sean Buckley in FierceTelecom, with AT&T planning to spend $25 billion on capital upgrades in 2018, while Verizon is looking at the $17 billion to $18 billion range.… More

Wyoming's legislature bows to telco, cable lobbyists, but not as deeply as California's

9 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Following California’s lead, Wyoming lawmakers grabbed their ankles and took what cable and telco lobbyists gave them: a law that subsidises broadband infrastructure, but only to the extent that incumbents want. Even so, Wyoming is not buying into the 1990s service levels that lobbyists for Frontier Communications, AT&T, Comcast and Charter Communications bribed convinced Californian assembly members and senators to accept.

As described by Phillip Dampier in Stop the Cap, what started out as an effort to give communities the option of pursuing their own broadband projects turned into an incumbent right of first refusal, secretly rewritten by lobbyists for Charter and CenturyLink.… More