Frontier Communications customers in Exeter, Calif. experienced intermittent phone and internet service last week after the phone company’s network deteriorated to the point of failure on Friday, Aug. 2, when the entire Exeter telephone exchange was apparently affected.

For most of last week, customers reported periodic outages and callers could not reach numbers in the 592 exchange. Some businesses reported calls were met with recordings that their numbers were permanently disconnected.

Frontier has said little about the outage, impacting the Tulare County community of 10,000, located north of Bakersfield. But area customers and businesses had a lot to say.

The local Bank of America branch closed for several days, unable to process banking or ATM transactions because of the outage. That forced residents to drive to Visalia or Lindsay to find ATMs that did not display “Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are temporarily closed. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The Frontier outage hit local businesses especially hard, because callers were given the impression area businesses had permanently closed. Those still open often could not process credit card transactions, turning away paying customers.

Exeter, Calif.

Paula Marvin, owner of Rosemary and Thyme in Exeter, told the Sun-Gazette the interruption affected her business.

“I remember being able to call out at around 10 a.m. but not in the afternoon,” Marvin said. “And even then I’m not sure who has what service.”

Callers in the 592 exchange could occasionally place calls to other Frontier customers in the same exchange, but not to other exchanges or non-Frontier customers. Incoming calls were usually not completed.

“When you call out, it gives you a busy signal, and when people call in it says the number has been disconnected or is no longer in service,” Marvin said.

Sherri Forcum, owner of Whistle Stop Diner, told the newspaper she lost about half of her business for the day on Aug. 2 because she was unable to process credit cards for walk-in customers and couldn’t receive phone calls for takeout orders. Callers were told the number was permanently disconnected. Some loyal customers drove to the diner to discover it was still open for business, and that was Forcum’s first realization the phone line was not working properly. Forcum intends to switch to Charter Spectrum phone service.

Customers calling Frontier to complain about the outage were initially told there was no outage and no problem with their phone service. The Exeter Chamber of Commerce begged to differ, telling the newspaper it was taking multiple complaints from Exeter businesses, particularly last Friday. Chamber representative Sarah Tyler experienced the outage herself.

“At the Mural Gallery, we’re able to pick up and get a dial tone but the moment you called it told you the number was disconnected,” Tyler said. “A lot of businesses and a lot of residents were really frustrated.”

The outage mysteriously ended on Monday. The newspaper could not get Frontier to comment on the outage at press time.

CBS and AT&T have agreed to end the blackout of 26 CBS owned and operated TV stations in 17 markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Tampa, Seattle, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. CBS local stations in these areas will return to AT&T U-verse, DirecTV, and DirecTV Now lineups sometime today.

The renewed retransmission consent contract covers carriage of these stations and CBS-owned CBS Sports Network and Smithsonian Channel for the next several years and could broaden carriage of the two CBS cable networks to additional AT&T platforms in the coming months.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but analysts suggest AT&T is now paying several dollars a month per subscriber for each over the air station. AT&T had earlier claimed CBS was being unreasonable in requesting a substantial hike in rates to continue carrying stations that viewers can get over the air for free.

AT&T is still engaged in weeks-long disputes with several Nexstar and Sinclair-managed local station, resulting in ongoing station blackouts in markets around the country.

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week voted 3-2 to tighten rules governing the franchise fees paid by cable companies to local authorities, a move that cities warn could result in public access channels going off the air or in municipalities losing free service.

Congress previously capped the franchise fees that cable operators pay for using public property, among other factors, at 5% of gross revenue on cable bills. The FCC vote requires non-financial “in kind” contributions made by cable operators must be assigned a value and counted against the cap.

Those costs that now must be counted against the cap include contributions for public, educational, and government access channels, institutional networks and other services like free cable for municipal buildings.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said “every dollar paid in excessive fees is a dollar that by definition cannot and will not be invested in upgrading and expanding networks.”

Cable operators pay roughly $3 billion annually in franchise fees to state and local governments.

New York told the FCC all city fire stations get free cable and internet service from cable providers.

“There are no viable alternative services available to the city. The only potential long-term solution would be to build a parallel network which will take years and cost a massive amount of money,” the city said in a July 25 letter.

Pai

The FCC also voted Thursday to bar municipalities from regulating or imposing fees on most non-cable services, including broadband Internet service.

NCTA – the Internet & Television Association representing major cable companies like Comcast Corp, Charter Communications Inc and Cox Communications Inc – said the vote “will help promote broadband investment, deployment, and innovation, to the benefit of all Americans.”

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said “free or discounted service to cash-strapped schools, provision of critical (institutional network service), discounts to vulnerable communities … are a small imposition given the value received by providers.”

Republicans commissioners point out that cable companies have been forced to fund other events like ice cream socials or offer free service for government-owned golf courses.

Local communities including Atlanta, Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles told the FCC in a joint statement local governments will “be forced to make difficult decisions about reductions in service (i.e., coverage of governmental meetings, community media, and broadband to schools) or increases in local revenue sources.”

Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bernadette Baum

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)

CBS and Viacom are one important step closer to merging under the CBS name, creating one of the country’s largest programming and broadcasting powerhouses.

Last week, the two companies’ board of directors agreed on who would run the combined company that will be worth tens of billions of dollars.

Under the agreement, the top spot will go to current Viacom CEO Bob Bakish, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Bakish has been working with Viacom to transform its operations in a world increasingly dominated by cord-cutting and online streaming. Viacom had a reputation of being ruthless with its cable and satellite partners, demanding some of the industry’s highest rates for Viacom-owned cable channels, causing some cable operators to drop Viacom networks from their cable TV lineups.

It will not be the first time CBS and Viacom have been merged. Owner Sumner Redstone kept the two companies together until splitting them apart in 2006. Shortly after, Redstone’s declining health led to warring factions inside the two companies and several legal disputes with Sumner’s daughter Shari, who took over for her 96-year-old father. Former CBS CEO Les Moonves long opposed a merger between CBS and Viacom, but Moonves was forced out of CBS because of a burgeoning sexual harassment scandal. His replacement, acting CBS CEO Joseph Ianniello, is said to be sanguine about the merger deal, even though it would result in a demotion to managing CBS’ broadcast network, owned and operated TV stations, and Showtime.

The merged company would absorb Viacom into CBS, putting assets including Comedy Central, MTV, VH-1, Nickelodeon, BET, and Paramount Pictures under CBS ownership and control.

Three people close to the situation cautioned talks were still ongoing and not final.

Fox Business News reports the merger of CBS and Viacom may be imminent. Will they also acquire Discovery Networks? (4:53)