Frontier Communications has topped AT&T’s penchant for grandiose Fiber to the Press Release announcements with a new gigabit fiber to the home service now being promoted in Connecticut, despite being available to only two homes in a single upscale subdivision in North Haven.

Frontier FiberHouse is Frontier’s answer to Verizon FiOS, says Joseph Ferraiolo, Frontier’s regional general manager in New Haven County. Ferraiolo told the New Haven Register Frontier has introduced the service to a pair of homes in Lexington Gardens, a new single-family subdivision.

Frontier’s expansion of the service in 2016 does not appear to be exactly aggressive, with plans to only wire up to 200 newly built homes in the immediate area.

Frontier’s fiber network relies on a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) and is intended to replace copper telephone wiring.

Ferraiolo admits Frontier is currently favoring new housing developments where fiber can be dropped in a conduit/pre-existing trench during construction without the cost of tearing up yards and streets. But he also claims Frontier will make a commitment to any municipality that gets the fiber service that it will be available to every part of the community, not just those likely to be most profitable. If Frontier keeps its promise, it will be the first time the phone company has provided customers with universal access to uniformly high-speed broadband. Even its acquired FiOS networks in Indiana and the Pacific Northwest are not guaranteed to be available to every resident.

“We think this is a good option for us: new builds, small complexes,” Ferraiolo said. “The developer is very happy with it and we’re very happy with it.”

Customers like William Morico will believe it when they see it.

“We have been trying to get ‘high-speed’ Internet in our neighborhood for years, well before the Frontier disaster,” Morico writes. “All we want is the 12-18Mbps service that is advertised and available elsewhere in New Haven. [We] cannot get any answers from Frontier. Even their customer service and tech staff are frustrated with this company. It’s time for the state gig project.”

The company claims it is “exploring” other rollouts of Frontier FiberHouse in Stamford and New Haven, but there are no specifics.

Some observers question the timing of Frontier’s fiber announcement, noting state and local officials are still considering a private-public partnership that could lead to a public statewide gigabit fiber network in Connecticut. News that a private company is willing to shoulder the entire expense of a fiber project could be used in legislative efforts to derail Connecticut’s CT Gig Project. But Frontier has offered no guarantees whether or if it intends to blanket its service area across the state with fiber or limit FiberHouse to a de-facto demonstration project in a handful of homes in new housing developments.

While planning to quietly drop Time Warner Cable’s budget-minded, unrestricted $14.99 Everyday Low Price Internet package after it acquires the company, Charter Communications is celebrating a “new and improved” low-income Internet offer that will likely discriminate against current customers while protecting company profits.

Charter Communications announced this month it would start offering qualified low-income families and seniors 30/4Mbps broadband service for $14.99 a month within six months of closing its acquisition deal with Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable. Charter claims its newest program will offer the highest broadband speed of any similar low-income discount Internet plan, and will include discounts for cable television and phone service as well.

“Recognizing the central role broadband plays in our daily lives and the economic challenges faced by many Americans today, we look forward to launching this offering that will provide more consumers a superior broadband service,” said Tom Rutledge, president and CEO of Charter Communications. “Our industry-leading low-cost broadband service is just one of the many benefits these transactions will bring to our customers. We look forward to providing this superior broadband service to underserved families and seniors throughout Charter’s footprint.”

Time Warner Cable offers $14.99 to anyone without paperwork. Charter isn’t.

But Charter’s discount Internet offer will replace Time Warner’s current $14.99 discount Internet program, available to any customer without pre-conditions or term contracts. Charter’s proposal to regulators states the company plans to replace multiple tiers of broadband service offered by Time Warner and Bright House with just two options — 60 and 100Mbps tiers that will eventually cost customers at least $60 a month — four times the cost of Time Warner’s budget-minded alternative.

Unlike Time Warner’s Everyday Low Price Internet, customers will have to qualify for the discounted program, which will discriminate against current customers, individuals and families without school age children, and senior citizens that do not receive additional assistance from the government.

Among the most onerous restrictions, Charter plans to protects itself from revenue cannibalization by prohibiting existing broadband customers from paying less by signing up for Charter’s new discounted plan. Customers will have to voluntarily drop Bright House/Charter/Time Warner Cable Internet service for at least 60 days before they can apply for Charter’s new low-cost option.

Other requirements limit participation only to families with students participating in the National School Lunch Program or seniors age 65 or older who also receive Supplemental Security Income program benefits. In all cases, participating customers must pay off all current and any past charges still owed to Bright House, Charter, and/or Time Warner Cable before they can enroll.

Charter included in a press release announcing the program a list of organizations it claims prove “widespread support for Charter’s low-cost broadband service.” Charter did not mention most of the groups quoted have a long history supporting the telecom industry, mostly after cashing generous contribution checks from the cable and phone companies involved:

National Urban League: A notorious friend of big cable and phone companies, the Urban League is a regular supporter of telecom mergers and opposes Net Neutrality. The Urban League has compiled a poor record among civil rights groups that routinely favors corporate contributors over the need of their constituencies. Its president, Marc Morial, has attracted the attention of the Center for Public Integrity, which published an exposé about the group and its leadership in 2014.

Sharpton

National Action Network, an organization founded and run by Reverend Al Sharpton: Sharpton’s group no longer discloses its corporate donor list, but large telecom companies often have the support of NAN on everything from mergers and acquisitions to blocking consumer protection regulation. An entertainment company executive in California called Sharpton corporate America’s “least expensive negro” for his willingness to advocate for big cable and phone companies in return for relatively small donations to his organization. National Action Network Inc. is on Charity Navigator’s Watchlist.

League of United Latin American Citizens: Time Warner Cable is an existing Corporate Alliance member of LULAC, a group that routinely supports large telecom company mergers and acquisitions and often advocates on their behalf while accepting corporate contributions.

Connected Nation: A group Public Knowledge says is sponsored by telephone and cable companies and represents their interests.

Digital Divide Partners LLC: Two guys from the Bronx running a website with spelling and grammar issues. The site doesn’t seem to have been updated since May 2015 and only then to post a generic thank you letter from the Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

NOBEL Women: In addition to the company’s sponsorship of group functions, Bright House’s corporate vice president for government and industry affairs – Marva Johnson, was a featured participant at the group’s 2014 annual conference.

Rainbow PUSH Coalition: Jesse Jackson’s group has come under fire for favoring the corporate agendas of its donor base. Rainbow/PUSH has a long record supporting corporate telecom mergers, including SBC and Ameritech back in 1999, AT&T and Tele-Communications, Inc. in 1999, AT&T and BellSouth back in 2006, Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2011, among many, many others. The coalition, supposedly representing the interests of average Americans, has also filed comments with regulators opposing a-la-carte cable TV pricing (pay only for the channels you want) and railing against Net Neutrality.

After years of enduring substandard broadband and a law virtually banning community broadband in the state, the 1,300 residents of Pinetops, N.C. are celebrating the forthcoming arrival of public gigabit-capable fiber to the home service from the nearby city of Wilson.

Broadband provider Greenlight will light up its fiber network in the community by April 2016, according to Community Broadband Networks. It isn’t soon enough for frustrated residents and town officials.

“Current providers haven’t made significant upgrades to our broadband service through the years,” said Pinetops interim city town manager Brenda Harrell. “They haven’t found us worth the investment. Through this partnership with Greenlight and our neighbors in Wilson, we are able to meet a critical need for our residents.”

The service comes after five years of negotiations, mostly stalled by the North Carolina Legislature’s passage of HB129, a bill co-authored by Time Warner Cable and celebrated by lawmakers like Rep. Marilyn Avila. Rural North Carolina didn’t get better broadband from HB129, but Avila got a $290 dinner and honored as a guest speaker before grateful cable executives.

In February 2015, FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler announced HB129 was overruled by the federal regulator as anti-competitive, finally opening the door for Pinetops to secure a better broadband future for itself.

In its order, the FCC cited many provisions in North Carolina’s law that violate the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Six of those provisions are mysteriously near-identical to language ghost-written by telecom companies in a “model broadband bill” offered to state legislators as a template by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.

Jim Baller, the attorney representing Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C., in their challenge to overturn those two state’s anti-community broadband laws, told the Center the FCC’s citing of those six provisions in its decision leaves much of ALEC’s model law untenable and subject to challenge.

“Because the North Carolina law uses similar language to that found in the ALEC model legislation, it would seem to follow that any other state that has relied heavily on the ALEC model has also effectively banned municipal broadband investments,” Baller wrote in an email to the group.

ALEC’s “model law” has kept gigabit fiber broadband far away from the residents of Pinetops, challenged by an economic transformation that has put at least a century of tobacco farming and textiles far behind for a small business, high-tech manufacturing, and digitally powered economic future. Just one example is Cary-based ABB, which maintains manufacturing facilities in Pinetops that produce sensors, current transformers, cutouts and other distribution equipment that power smart grid electric utility networks. Bringing more high-tech business to town is a priority for town officials, but having the right infrastructure is crucial.

Gregory Bethea, Pinetops’ former town manager, told the New York Times in 2014, “if you want to have economic development in a town like this, you’ve got to have fiber.”

But Pinetops’ small size almost guaranteed it would never get fiber from North Carolina’s powerful telecom companies, which include AT&T, CenturyLink, and Time Warner Cable. Many rural communities around the country facing anti-municipal broadband laws like HB129 complain corporate influence threatens the economic viability of small communities over a service incumbents have no intention of offering in small towns, and apparently don’t want anyone else to offer either.

The agreement with Pinetops is also good news for Greenlight, which finally gets to expand outside of its existing service area that reaches about 20,000 residents. Growing Greenlight can bring economic benefits including greater economy of scale and better rates for programming. It will also allow communities in the same economic situation as Wilson, 40 miles east of Raleigh, the opportunity to stay competitive with improving broadband networks in cities like Charlotte and the Piedmont Triad cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point.

Frontier Communications had to be chased by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to improve broadband speeds for at least 28,000 DSL customers who thought they were buying 6Mbps DSL service but ended up with maximum speeds of 1.5Mbps or less.

Frontier today agreed to a settlement with state officials to spend an extra $150 million to boost DSL speeds for rural customers around the state and offer deep discounts for affected customers until they can receive at least 6Mbps service. Today’s settlement has no impact on a separate class action lawsuit brought by Frontier customers who accuse the company of throttling broadband speeds to save money and reduce traffic on its network.

The agreement is the largest, independently negotiated consumer protection settlement in West Virginia history and is expected to improve broadband service over the next three years.

“This agreement is a game changer for the Mountain State,” Morrisey said. “The settlement helps consumers receive the high-speed service they expected, while directing significant monies to help fix connectivity issues that consistently keep our state from achieving economic success.”

For at least two years, Frontier customers sent Morrisey’s office complaints stating they were not getting the speed and performance Frontier advertised for its DSL service. While the company told both customers and investors it had blanketed West Virginia with speeds “up to 6Mbps,” many customers discovered the phone company locked their modems to receive no better than 1.5Mbps.

Attorney General Morrisey

Frontier denied any allegation of wrongdoing and says it entered into the settlement to resolve disputed claims without the necessity of protracted and expensive litigation. But it will cost the company at least $150 million in additional upgrades, not including the $180 million Frontier already earmarked for broadband expansion in West Virginia, partly subsidized by the ratepayer-funded Connect America Fund.

About 28,000 customers identified by Frontier with modems the company provisioned for service at speeds of 1.5Mbps or lower will begin seeing an ongoing credit applied to their bills beginning Jan. 25, 2016, reducing the price of Frontier’s DSL service to $9.99 a month.

Affected customers can verify if they are included in the settlement on a special website Frontier has set up for its West Virginia customers.

The discounts will continue individually for each customer until the company can demonstrate it can deliver the 6Mbps speeds customers in West Virginia paid to receive. New Frontier DSL customers with speeds no better than 1.5Mbps will also qualify for the discount. Those with modems locked at speeds above 1.5Mbps but still getting less than 6Mbps will not benefit from this settlement, but may still get relief from a separate class action lawsuit covering customers in the state being heard in Lincoln County.

Last week, Lincoln County Circuit Judge Jay Hoke rejected an effort by Frontier to have the class action case dismissed. The company insisted its terms and conditions forbade customers from taking Frontier to court, requiring them to pursue arbitration instead.

Judge Hoke rejected Frontier’s arguments, finding the phone company “buried” the arbitration clause in fine print on its website and on the last pages of customer billing inserts. Hoke also ruled Frontier was attempting to retroactively apply its arbitration clause years after customers initially signed up for broadband service.

“We are finally going to get our day in court,” Michael Sheridan, a Frontier customer in Greenbrier County and Stop the Cap! reader told the Charleston Gazette. Sheridan is suing Frontier over its poor performance in West Virginia. “We think this lawsuit is the best chance we’ll ever have of bringing real Internet to rural West Virginia.”

Frontier argued if customers were dissatisfied with its DSL service, they could have canceled but never did. The company did not mention many of the affected customers have no other options for broadband service except satellite Internet, which receives poor reviews.

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling,” said Frontier spokesman Andy Malinoski. “In our view, arbitration provides for fair resolution of consumer concerns that is quicker, simpler, and less expensive than lawsuits in court. We plan to appeal.”

Frontier’s decision to appeal might take longer and cost more than addressing problems for at least some of the affected customers.

Judge Hoke also took a dim view of Frontier’s style of disclosing changes to its terms and conditions.

‘On the website, computer users must scroll to the bottom of the page and click on a “Terms & Conditions” link that’s “buried among 25 other links,” then click on two other links to find the arbitration provision that denies customers’ rights to a jury trial,’ Hoke wrote in his order. ‘There’s no button to click or box to check that allows customers to agree to Frontier’s terms. In monthly bills, the arbitration clause shows up one time on the “fourth and last page” of an insert and another time in “miniscule font,” Hoke found.

Customers would have to be psychic to guess Frontier had important news restricting their right to take a dispute to court.

“There is no reason whatsoever for a customer to turn to the last page,” Hoke wrote. “Additionally, the bills contain no prompting that customers should flip to the last page for information concerning Frontier’s desire to alter the customer’s right to a jury trial.”

While Frontier pursues its appeal at the state Supreme Court, Frontier is expected to lose million in revenue from the settlement with the Attorney General.

“The reduced rate gives Frontier a strong incentive to raise speeds for these customers,” Morrisey said.

Another provision in the settlement requires Frontier to pay $500,000 to the state’s Consumer Protection Fund. That payment will offset investigative and monitoring expenses in addition to helping defray the costs of transitioning consumers to higher Internet speeds.

Frontier spokesman Andy Malinoski said the company had planned to address the issues all along. He said the settlement will accelerate the improvements.

West Virginians seeking more information about the maximum speed their modem is provisioned to receive can call Frontier at 1-888-449-0217 for more information.

Those with further questions can contact the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division at 800-368-8808 or visit the office online at www.wvago.gov.

Service areas where Comcast is offering 2Gbps service.

Although Comcast has never publicly released how many customers have taken the plunge for its expensive 2Gbps broadband service, customers in the northeast will at least have the option of signing up by the end of this year.

DSLReports notes Comcast recently upgraded its coverage map for the fiber to the home service to include the northeastern states where it provides cable service.

“I can confirm for you that Gigabit Pro is now being made available across the Northeast Division,” Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said, with updated ordering details still forthcoming. It is exempt from any usage caps or usage billing.

Customers interested in inquiring about service availability and scheduling have had the best results calling 1-877-338-7010, which will put you in touch with a knowledgeable representative.

Not everyone will qualify for the fiber service. Comcast requires customers to live within close proximity to an existing Comcast fiber node. Since Comcast doesn’t offer a map of where those are located, the only way to verify if service is available is to call and arrange for a free site survey.

Bringing Comcast’s fiber optic service to your home will involve considerable expense and the appearance of construction equipment in your neighborhood to pull fiber through a conduit or attach it to a nearby pole. An installer will arrive later to finish the work and configure the service.

Customers ready for all that will also need deep pockets to cover Comcast’s mandatory $500 activation fee, $500 installation fee, as well as an ongoing $299.95 a month for the service for two years to avoid a $1,000 early termination fee.