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‘Frontier is a Black Hole’ – Customers Left With Unreliable Service for Weeks in Rochester

Phillip Dampier March 28, 2019 Consumer News, Frontier, Video 3 Comments

One of Frontier Communication’s largest legacy service areas is suffering from some of the same bad service reported by rural communities in states like California, Minnesota, and Florida.

News10NBC reports that some customers in Rochester, N.Y. have spent “weeks without reliable telephone service and very few answers.”

Frontier landline customer Andy Melnyk says the problems with his phone service began six weeks ago. The line frequently goes dead with no dial tone, and customers calling the Rochester family get nothing but a busy signal.

“I thought okay, they fixed it, let it go and then it happened again,” Melnyk reports. Despite the service problems, Frontier has not offered any bill credits, or a satisfactory explanation for the problem.

“[It’s] just like a black hole, you can’t find anything out,” Melnyk’s wife Kay told the station. “They’re not being very transparent about what the problem is, [and] what they’re doing to solve it.”

The Melnyk family is not alone. Other Frontier customers in the neighborhood are dealing with the same issue.

It took News10NBC to get involved to get a statement from Frontier, claiming the problem is a wet copper cable.

“Frontier technicians are working to repair a large-diameter copper cable damaged when recent rainstorms flooded an underground vault,” Frontier said in a statement. “Services were restored for affected customers by March 7, however, the permanent repair process needed to splice new cable is complex and takes time. We expect to finish the work this weekend. We thank our customers and the communities we serve for their patience as Frontier crews work safely and diligently to maintain our network and keep communities connected.”

Maintaining deteriorating copper wire infrastructure that other phone companies discarded years ago in favor of fiber optics can be complex and time-consuming. But other companies have found upgrading to fiber has given their networks more reliability and happier customers. But Frontier has shown no signs of launching fiber upgrades for customers in their legacy copper wire service areas.

Meanwhile, when asked if Frontier customers will receive bill credits for the problems, a Frontier spokesperson told the station they will consider that on a “case by case basis.”

WHEC in Rochester reports Frontier customers in parts of Rochester, N.Y. have experienced weeks of bad service and are not getting any answers why. (2:36)

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Wilhelm Elmore
Wilhelm Elmore
4 years ago

WEEKS of bad service?!

That’s unacceptable. Landline is supposed to be more reliable than cell. Something you can depend upon in an emergency.

Bob
Bob
4 years ago

Yet there are tech blogs who have complained when telcos replace copper with fiber to the home because customers can’t get dial tone when the power goes out for a few days.

Paul Houle
Paul Houle
4 years ago

Around the time this article came out I had trouble with one of my Frontier phone lines — the audio was scratchy and the DSL became unreliable. No crisis because I have two lines, but it got people mad at me when I was gaming and my connection dropped out. This time Frontier was great about fixing it, they had somebody out in two days. Like the troubles in Rochester it was a case of a box getting flooded, they had to repair the wires and put some goo in to keep water out. In the past it’s been everything… Read more »

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