Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing rural broadband initiatives in New York.

When New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo boasted in 2015 that anyone who wanted broadband service in the state would have access to it, he could not have realized that claim would come back to haunt him five years later.

New York’s Broadband for All program claimed to be the “largest and most ambitious state broadband investment in the nation,” with $500 million set aside “to achieve statewide broadband access by 2018,” with “99.9% of New Yorkers” getting access to broadband service.

In 2020, that goal remains elusive, with over 80,000 New Yorkers relegated to heavily data-capped satellite internet access and potentially tens of thousands more left behind by erroneous broadband availability maps that could leave many with no access at all. Now it appears the federal government will not be coming to the rescue, potentially stranding some rural residents as a permanent, unconnected underclass.

The Republican-majority at the Federal Communications Commission has decided to take the Democratic governor at his word and exclude additional rural broadband funding for New York State. The FCC’s recently approved Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) is the most ambitious rural broadband funding initiative to date, with a budget of $20.4 billion. As it stands, not a penny of those funds will ever be paid to support additional broadband projects in the Empire State.

“Back in 2016, the governor of New York represented to this agency that allocating the full $170 million in Connect America Fund II support to the state broadband program would allow full broadband buildout throughout the Empire State, when combined with the state’s own funding,” said FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly.

That $170 million was originally designated for Verizon to spend in upstate and western New York in areas without high-speed broadband. When Verizon declined to accept the funding, the rules for the program required the money to be made available for other qualified projects in other states, or left forfeit, unspent. An appeal from New York’s Senate delegation to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to award that $170 million to New York’s Broadband for All program was successful, allowing other phone, cable, and wireless providers to construct new rural broadband projects around the state. That decision was met with criticism, especially by the Wireless Industry Service Providers Association (WISPA), which represents the interests of mostly rural, fixed wireless providers around the country.

O’Rielly

“After robust opportunity for public input, last year the FCC adopted a CAF-II framework that was truly technology-neutral and designed to harness the power of competition to deliver the most broadband to the most Americans, at the lowest overall price,” said Steve Coran, counsel for WISPA, in a statement. “Unfortunately, today’s action appears to deviate from this approach by providing disproportionate support to one state at the expense of others, which will now be competing for even less federal support.”

That criticism was partially echoed by Commissioner O’Rielly, who appreciated the dilemma of rural New Yorkers without access to high speed internet, but felt the FCC was showing favoritism to New York, which he worried was getting a disproportionate share of federal funding.

“These are federal [Universal Service Fund] dollars taken from ratepayers nationwide. They are not New York State funds, and we have the burden of deciding how best to allocate these scarce dollars, as well as the right to demand that they be spent wisely,” O’Rielly said. “At the same time, I am concerned that the funding will not be used as efficiently as possible. It should not be lost on everyone that New York is one of the states that diverts 9-1-1 fees collected to other non-related purposes, as is noted in the Commission’s recent report on the subject. We should have received assurances that New York would cease this disgraceful practice.”

O’Rielly added that offering even more generous funding in New York could lead to overpaying providers to service rural New York communities at the expense of other, cheaper rural broadband projects in other states.

Recently O’Rielly claimed that allowing New York to receive funding under the new RDOF program would almost guarantee dollars would be spent on duplicative, overlapping broadband projects, noting that Gov. Cuomo already considers New York almost entirely served by high speed providers. In fact, he claimed any additional funding sent to New York would be “beyond foolish and incredibly wasteful” and would undermine the rural broadband program’s objective to avoid funding projects in areas already served by an existing provider.

In other words, since Gov. Cuomo has claimed that virtually the entire state is now served with high speed internet access, O’Reilly believes there is no reason to award any further money to the state.

Except the claim that ‘nearly the entire state already has broadband access’ is untrue, and O’Rielly’s arguments against sending any additional money to New York seem more political than rational.

The FCC’s broadband availability map shows significant portions of New York in yellow, which designates no provider delivering the FCC’s minimum of 25/3 Mbps broadband service.

First, the FCC’s own flawed broadband availability maps, criticized for over counting the number of Americans with access to broadband, still shows large sections of upstate and western New York unserved by any suitable provider. Parts of western New York between Buffalo and Rochester, significant portions of the Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, and North Country are all still without access. An even larger portion of upstate New York has either no access or very slow access through DSL. The number of residents without service is significant. The FCC uses census blocks to measure broadband availability, but this methodology is flawed because if even one home within that block has broadband while dozens of others do not, the FCC still counts every home as served. This has angered many New Yorkers stuck without service while a local cable or phone company offers high-speed internet access to neighbors just up the road. Many of these rural residents are not even designated to receive satellite service, Broadband for All’s last catchall option for areas where no wired provider bid to provide service.

Second, long-standing rules in broadband funding programs already deny funding to areas where another suitable provider already offers service. So it would be impossible for RDOF to award “wasted” funding to projects where service already exists.

While Gov. Cuomo’s boastful claims about broadband availability opened the door for discriminatory rules against the state, the FCC itself wrote the rules, and it appears the goal was one part payback for securing earlier broadband funding over the objections of Commission O’Reilly, and one part sticking it to a state that has given the Trump Administration plenty of heartburn since the president took office.

Today we present a roundup of videos from diverse news outlets around the country documenting ongoing, serious lapses in service at Frontier Communications.

MetroNews talks with West Virginia Public Service Commission chair Charlotte Lane about the thousands of service complaints on file regarding Frontier Communications. (4:39)

Some Frontier customers worry the company’s extended service outages are “a matter of life and death.” WSAW-TV in Wisconsin is one of several media outlets reporting on the problems at Frontier.

The Better Business Bureau recently renewed its “F” rating for Frontier Communications, issuing this special consumer alert along the way:

On October 17, 2019 and November 21, 2019, BBB attempted to contact Frontier Communications Corp. regarding a high volume and pattern of serious complaints. BBB received 11,803 complaints in the past 36 months alleging customer service issues, missing appointments, decline in services previously handled by other providers who Frontier has assumed, billing issues including additional service charges for periods once the consumer has cancelled services. The business failed to respond to one of these complaints and 76 others were not resolved through BBB’s complaint process.

BBB notified Frontier Communications Corp. about the pattern of complaints and asked the business to voluntarily cooperate in eliminating the pattern by providing a written response outlining the specific steps it would implement in order to avoid similar complaints in the future. BBB also requested general information including copies of refund policies, the names & full contact information of the business’ principal officers and responsible management, copies of its promotional and advertising materials, the physical address of its principal office, copies of required competency licensing and a completed BBB Standard Business Questionnaire.

In response to the pattern of complaints, Frontier Communications Corp. provided the following response:

Frontier’s primary value is putting our customers first. Our fiber network and large rural copper network serves more than 4M customers.

Despite these assets and the dedication of nearly 20,000 employees, we have disappointed customers, primarily due to two very large acquisitions. The first in Connecticut with AT&T  and the second in California, Texas and Florida with Verizon. As the BBB points out, many of the 11K (as of December 2019) complaints made on this platform resulted from the transition of services in those two transactions.  We have worked diligently to address the issues raised and restore credibility. Issues related to those transactions have been resolved.

We have a new President and CEO who is a true champion of customer satisfaction, and in just a few weeks he has crisscrossed the country to hammer home the need for accountability and reliability and flawless customer service. We need to keep things simple and deliver on our commitments.

Some improvements include updated our website to include more information about how to resolve concerns and whom to contact. Frontier has invested in product and operational innovations that are driving more improvements in our service. Our internal resolution task force continues to remain engaged, reviewing customer service processes and acting on lessons learned to become better guides for, and providers of service to our customers and communities.

Charter Communications, doing business as Time Warner Cable, has quickly moved to settle a lawsuit filed last week by the district attorneys of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Riverside, Calif.

The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court, alleged that Time Warner Cable misrepresented the internet speeds it marketed to California consumers and failed to deliver the level of service advertised.

“We cooperated fully in the review, have resolved this matter comprehensively, and this is expressly not a finding nor an admission of liability,” Charter said in a statement.

The lawsuit is very similar to one filed in New York in 2017 and later settled by Charter involving Time Warner Cable Maxx service, which offered internet speeds in upgraded service areas around New York City up to 300 Mbps.

The suit claimed that Time Warner Cable knowingly oversold its services using infrastructure incapable of meeting the level of service customers paid for. The California suit claimed Time Warner Cable allegedly engaged in unlawful business practices starting as early as 2013. Time Warner Cable was sold to Charter Communications in 2016 and began operating as Spectrum by the end of that year.

The district attorneys requested civil damages and a formal injunction prohibiting Spectrum from advertising internet speeds it cannot support. None of the district attorneys involved in the case had any comment about the settlement. It is not known what damages, if any, Charter has agreed to pay in return for settling the case out of court.

No service.

Despite New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $500 million, 2015 Broadband for All initiative which guaranteed broadband service for anyone  that wanted home internet access, five years later rural broadband gaps continue to plague the state.

A bill that would set aside funds to complete a feasibility study to launch a state owned broadband provider of last resort was quietly vetoed by Cuomo at the end of 2019. Assembly member Aileen Gunther (D-Monticello) sponsored the bill after hearing scores of complaints about terrible or non-existent internet access from constituents in her district, which covers the parts of the rural Catskills region north of the Pennsylvania border.

Gunther complained that despite the governor’s broadband initiative, private phone and cable companies were still ignoring rural customers, leaving them with slow DSL service or no internet access at all. Gunther’s bill was a first step in potentially allowing the state to step in and provide service to New Yorkers unable to get broadband from any private provider.

New York has spent over $500 million on its Broadband for All program and made Charter Spectrum an integral part of its broadband expansion plans in return for approval of its 2016 acquisition of Time Warner Cable. But a growing number of the governor’s critics claim the program has failed to deliver on its mandate, stranding thousands of New Yorkers without internet service and tens of thousands more with just one option — unpopular satellite internet access.

Gunther

Gunther was upset to learn that New York was prepared to hand over more than a half billion dollars to large private telecom companies including Frontier Communications and Verizon while not being willing to spend a penny to fund projects to reach New Yorkers for-profit companies could not be dragged kicking and screaming to service.

“We’re all spending millions and millions of dollars on privately owned internet service providers,” said Gunther. “In return for promises, a lot of our communities do not have access to the internet, or if they do have access to the internet, it’s slow and these companies are not, I think, fulfilling the promises made.”

The rural broadband problem is not resolved in the Finger Lakes or Southern Tier regions of New York either. This week, Yates County announced it was joining an effort by Schuyler, Steuben, and Tioga counties, and the Southern Tier Network, to complete a broadband feasibility study to improve internet access in the four counties. Fujitsu Broadband will manage the study and hopes to have results by June. The study will target the pervasive problem of inadequate broadband service in the region, which includes crucial tourist, winery, and agricultural businesses vital to New York’s rural economy.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing rural broadband initiatives in New York in 2015.

Gov. Cuomo has called such initiatives “well-intentioned” but was non committal about contributing more state funds to construct new networks or underwrite further expansion of existing ones. New York is about to begin its annual hard-fought budget negotiations in hopes of completing the state budget by April. Finding funding for such projects will probably require a powerful political advocate able to wrestle funding for further broadband improvements.

Even after spending $500 million, New York’s rural broadband problem has not been resolved. That offers insight into the merits of other state broadband programs, which often limit annual broadband expansion funding to under $30 million annually.

Those still without service are likely in high-cost service areas, where each customer could cost over $20,000 to reach. New York’s Broadband for All program relied on a reverse auction that required private companies to bid to service each unserved address. No wireline provider bid on any high-cost service areas, leaving Hughes Satellite as a subsidized satellite provider of last resort. But inadequate broadband mapping left scores of rural New Yorkers behind without even the option of subsidized satellite internet access.