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The best way Frontier Communications believes it can resolve service problems in Pennsylvania is to threaten those complaining with a cease and desist letter that accuses the complainant of misrepresenting Frontier’s excellent service.
Bradford County, Pa. officials learned this first hand when Commissioner Darryl Miller wrote to Frontier alerting them that service outages in northeastern Pennsylvania are becoming a public safety issue. The company responded with a letter warning the commissioner to end the criticism or else.
“We’re simply looking for answers,” Commissioner Miller told WNEP-TV’s investigations reporter Dave Bohman. Miller adds he thinks it’s heavy-handed to use the words, “cease and desist.”
Miller isn’t the only one looking for answers. WNEP interviewed Susan Moore, who lives alone in the rural community of Orwell. Her phone service went out of service at least once a week over the summer.
“I’ve got a lot of health issues,” she told the TV station. The implications of not having landline service became all too clear to Moore in August when she needed to send for an ambulance.
Bradford County, Pa.
Moore pressed her lifeline call alert button which relies on Frontier phone service to reach medical aid in case she falls and cannot get up or has a medical emergency. Nothing happened. Her phone service was out again.
“Without the phone service, my Life Alert doesn’t work,” Moore said. “That’s when I decided, as much pain as I was in, I got in a car and drove 20 miles to get to a hospital.”
Bradford County officials hear stories like Moore’s so often, they now eclipse complaints about potholes and taxes.
The problems affect both traditional landline dial tone service and DSL. If outages are not the subject of the complaint, slow and unresponsive Internet access usually is. Some customers were told Frontier oversold its DSL service in Bradford County and the company is waiting for federal broadband subsidies to improve service in the area.
Frontier Communications vice president Elena Kilpatrick said Frontier will spend part of a $2 million broadband improvement subsidy to deliver better service in Bradford County over the next six years. At the same time Frontier is tapping a ratepayer-funded subsidy to improve its existing service, the company is spending $10.5 billion of its own money to acquire Verizon landline infrastructure and customers in Florida, Texas, and California.
Despite the fact it will take up to six years to fully spend the subsidy, Kilpatrick claims the company has already upgraded phone and Internet service and fixed several problems reported by customers. She defended the company’s use of a threatening “cease and desist” letter sent to Commissioner Miller, claiming Frontier wanted the “misrepresentation of the facts” to stop.
Despite Kilpatrick’s claims, the complaints keep rolling in.
Randy, a Frontier customer in Bradford County reports he endures Frontier outages just about every Saturday since October, despite repeated service calls. Janise Groover wrote a Frontier technician tried to blame cobwebs for interfering with her Wi-Fi signals and poor DSL speeds — problems that are still unresolved — for which she pays Frontier $103 a month. Janice Bellinger complained her Frontier DSL connection drops “three or four times a day.” Customers in Monroe, Luzerne and Sullivan counties echoed Frontier service is dreadful in their areas as well.
Customers experiencing problems with their phone service in Pennsylvania can file an informal complaint with the state Public Utilities Commission and the FCC.
[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WNEP Scranton Frontier Service Problems 11-16-15.mp4[/flv]
WNEP in Scranton reports Frontier’s solution to a county commissioner’s complaints about service was to send him a “cease and desist” letter. (3:16)
This is a common pattern with Frontier: service problems that don’t get fixed until you get in touch with top management — then problems that persisted for weeks or months will go away in 24 hours. Sometimes somebody follows the Frontier truck up my driveway all distraught, saying that their internet has been out for a month, somebody do something. There used to be lots of busted cans in my neighborhood until I complained vociferously on numerous fora such as this one for years. Not only does Frontier refuse to upgrade their copper network to a long-term sustainable fiber network,… Read more »
What’s that program in PA called that requires LECs to build out DSL or “broadband,” even outside their footprints?
Just to look at the numbers, there are about 60K people in Bradford county and suppose that means 30K phone lines with DSL. At Frontier rates they are getting $300,000 a month in revenue so in 10 months that is $3M which is huge compared to the $2M grant spread out over a wide area. If Frontier wants to keep up it’s “hell no we won’t invest” maybe communities need to start working to force Frontier to drop its prices. If Frontier is a machine to turn old landlines into cash, then maybe the people served by those landlines should… Read more »
This is just another example of Frontier’s character; placing money above all else, even customer’s safety! Funny how they justify anemic investment in PA yet they can find the cash to purchase properties from VZ in CA, FLA and TX.
Worst IPS ever!