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Ohio and Marshall counties are located in West Virginia’s Panhandle region, sandwiched between the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Emergency services officials in West Virginia’s Panhandle region are “scared” about Frontier Communications’ ability to provide reliable access to 911 after four outages in three months, and they are reaching out to the Federal Communications Commission and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) for help.
Public officials in Ohio and Marshall counties, sandwiched between the Ohio and Pennsylvania borders near Wheeling, are increasingly concerned Frontier may be no longer able to provide reliable basic service in the region.
“I’ve got to be honest with you. It scares the heck out of me,” Theresa Russell, Ohio County’s 911 director, told WTRF News. “I worry that after these types of incidents occur, I’m going to find out that somebody needed us and they had no way of getting through.”
Two recent outages occurred around midnight, one of which Frontier later said was a “planned outage.” But local officials claim Frontier never notified affected communities, preventing them from giving the public an alternate number to call in case of an emergency.
The other outages were unplanned, one impacting nine West Virginia counties that lasted well over an hour.
Frontier officials have increasingly responded to these outages by stressing the economic difficulties it faces serving remote areas in states where it is costly to provide service. In a statement, Frontier told the TV station that it “takes its commitment to serve West Virginians and support 911 services seriously.”
Frontier:
“Frontier provides service in the most rural areas of West Virginia where other providers choose not to invest to deliver service and where the challenges of remoteness are greatest. We work to promptly address service interruptions that occur from time-to-time because of severe weather events, vehicle accidents, third party construction damage to our facilities and other causes.
“We continue to evaluate and execute strategies to improve our service and ensure our customers have access to reliable and affordable service.”
WTRF-TV reports West Virginia’s Panhandle region is frightened about Frontier’s repeated 911 service outages. (1:36)
It is a sad story to watch and it makes me wonder if Frontier should get another round of shareholder lawsuits. Why did they buy all of these phone lines from Verizon and AT&T if they knew they wouldn’t be able to afford to maintain them? It’s was always clear that they were going to bleed customers to wireless providers and to alternative wired providers whenever they were available if they didn’t invest in a 21st century communications network. It’s harmful to so many people such as the customers, workers. shareholders, and the taxpayers who are probably going to have… Read more »