frontiercommunications

Frontier CEO leaves the door open to a California exit

1 March 2018 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications had a rough day yesterday, following the release of its fourth quarter 2017 results and the announcement that is would no longer be paying dividends to shareholders. Instead, it will direct that money toward paying down its substantial debt.

The company’s share price dropped about 24% on the day, continuing a slide that’s seen it lose more than 80% of its value over the past year. In a conference call with analysts, president and CEO Dan McCarthy was asked about rumors that Frontier was trying to sell off the wireline systems it acquired from Verizon two years ago in California, Texas and Florida – what it calls its “CTF” market.… More

Frontier preps to say adios to California, report says

4 February 2018 by Steve Blum
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Less than two years after it flipped the switch and took over Verizon’s wireline systems in California – and the two million subscribers that were on those systems at the time – Bloomberg is reporting that Frontier wants out. According to the story by Nabila Ahmed and Scott Moritz, the company has engaged advisors in an attempt to reduce a crushing debt load by selling off assets (h/t to Fred Pilot at Eldo Telecom Blog for the pointer)…

The company is considering a sale of a package of landline assets in California, Florida and Texas that it acquired from Verizon Communications Inc.

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Frontier exceeds federal expectations but understates Californian obligations

Frontier Communications put out a puzzling press release yesterday. What should have been a celebration of good news, was instead a mish-mash of misdirection and lawyerly evasions that raised more questions than it answered.

The good news is that Frontier has upgraded broadband availability for 39,000 of the 90,000 rural Californian homes it promised the Federal Communications Commission it would serve with a minimum of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds, in exchange for $228 million in subsidies.… More

Frontier punts on California broadband subsidy obligation

Frontier is bragging about how well it’s doing with the broadband infrastructure and service upgrades it promised to do, in exchange for $2 billion in federal subsidies. But not in California.

When it accepted the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund (CAF) money in 2015, Frontier agreed to deliver a minimal level of service – 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds – to 58,000 homes and businesses in California in exchange for a total of $228 million, paid out over six years in $38 million increments.… More

Wet string delivers faster broadband than AT&T or Frontier for 1 million Californians

20 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The best broadband that AT&T and Frontier Communications offers to more than one million Californians is advertised at a download speed of 3 Mbps or less, if it’s available at all. That’s slower than the 3.5 Mbps that a British techie achieved using a couple of pieces of wet string and some ADSL gear.

He was sitting around the office one day and decided to give it a go. That earned him serious geek cred with his boss, Adrian Kennard, who runs Andrews and Arnold, an ISP in the U.K.… More

Frontier's two buck suck tests FCC's consumer protection claims

16 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communication’s broadband customers might want to take up the offer of fierce consumer fraud protection that the Federal Communication Commission made as it issued its network belligerence decision this week. They thought they were getting broadband service at a stated price, but Frontier surprised them by adding a $2 “Internet infrastructure surcharge” to their bills. Because it could.

The charge is an attempt by Frontier to advertise a low price for broadband service, while charging a higher one.… More

AT&T, Frontier talk to CPUC about future networks, without putting all cards on the table

7 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The California Public Utilities Commission looked at telephone company plans to replace copper networks and plain old telephone service (POTS) with new technology at a workshop in San Francisco yesterday. Representatives from AT&T and Frontier Communications talked about some, but not all, of those plans, as I pointed out in the remarks I prepared, and mostly delivered, at the workshop…

The copper-to-IP transition involves three discrete but inter-related issues. Only two of those issues were addressed today.

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Frontier orders a California broadband subsidy sandwich

3 December 2017 by Steve Blum
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The first application for construction (and maybe operations) subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) since the program was gutted by the California legislature landed in the hopper at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Frontier Communications is asking for a $1.8 million grant, without specifying how much, if anything, it’s willing to pay out of its own pocket. It wants the money to pay for a fiber to the home system in and around the remote San Bernardino County town of Lytle Creek…

Frontier’s proposed project will cover about 4.4 square miles and is a combination of middle-mile and last-mile infrastructure using Frontier’s existing poles and rights of way to deploy fiber-to-the-home (“FTTH”) facilities capable of providing High Speed Internet, Ethernet, and VoIP service with speeds of up to 1 Gbps download and 1 Gbps upload.

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Rural Californians still fleeing Frontier broadband by the thousands

6 November 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier is still losing broadband subscribers in California, more so in rural areas than in urban areas, but either way the counts are dropping. That’s according to Frontier’s third quarter 2017 financial report and presentation. The good news? Frontier says it’s not bleeding as fast as it was.

Frontier first separates its results out into what it calls “CTF”, short for California, Texas and Florida, and “legacy”, which is what it had before it bought out Verizon’s wireline systems in those three states.… More

Frontier preps to pull a wireless bait and switch on Californians

9 October 2017 by Steve Blum
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Frontier Communications is backtracking on pledges made to the California Public Utilities Commission as it successfully sought permission to take over Verizon’s copper and fiber systems in California. During that process, it claimed to be a “dedicated wireline service provider” as it was trying to convince the CPUC that it could do a better job than Verizon…

Frontier is strategically focused solely on wireline telecommunications and has a long and successful history providing those services.

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