Internet users in the Philippines have reacted angrily to a government proposal to limit broadband consumption that turns out to have been written by the telecommunications companies that would benefit from it.

The National Telecommunications Commission’s (NTC’s) proposal would allow broadband providers across the country to establish usage limits of 5GB per day, both to “combat piracy” and to “improve service” across the country.  But critics charge, and at least one spokesperson for the Commission admits, many of the proposals in the draft document governing broadband were written entirely by the telecommunications companies themselves.

Much of the Philippines receives DSL broadband service from standard copper telephone wires.  The country’s broadband rankings are dismal, scoring 141st out of 185 ranked nations in a Speedtest survey.  Filipino Internet users suffer with slower average broadband speeds than users in Albania, Djibouti, Uzbekistan, and Libya.

Government efforts to improve service routinely run into well-manned roadblocks established by powerful, politically connected corporate interests.

What began as a pro-consumer reform measure to get providers to accurately depict their broadband speeds has been largely transformed into an industry wish-list fulfilled, according to TXTPower, a pro-consumer action group.

One consumer advocacy group isn't buying providers' arguments

The group lists the problems consumers routinely endure from telecommunications providers — issues the NTC proposal largely fails to address:

“Failure to deliver promised services, failure to address customer complaints, failure to compensate customers for poor or botched services, the imposition of long contracts and so-called termination fees are hallmarks of the telcos when it comes to broadband Internet connections,” the group outlines.

TXTPower wants the Commission to schedule a series of public meetings across the country to allow consumers to provide input on the draft reform law.  The group criticized an under-publicized December meeting that was attended largely by professional lobbyists for the telecom companies.

“We are sure that consumers nationwide will look forward to attending such consultations and tell the NTC what the so-called regulator should be doing,” the group says.

The group thinks setting a national minimum speed would be a good start.

“Up to now, the NTC has failed to follow the lead of telecom regulators worldwide in defining what broadband Internet is, whether delivered via dial-up, wired or wireless connections. For instance, the United States now defines “basic broadband” as Internet service with a download rate of at least 4 Mbps and an upload rate of 1 Mbps. Worldwide, the trend is to consistently raise the basic minimum,” said Tonyo Cruz, the group’s president and chief executive officer.  “Without such a definition, the NTC leaves telcos practically free to hoodwink end-users, including business and the government, regarding broadband services, the cost and pricing, and to keep Philippine Internet access among the slowest and most expensive in the region. At the same time, we cannot begin to estimate the amount of access fees charged or practically extorted by telcos for undelivered, under-delivered or poor services.”

Philippine broadband is as fast as dripping molasses on a cold January morning.

Instead, with the input of some of the Philippine’s largest telecom interests, the Commission has offered the country limited improvements based on rationing and full disclosure of the slow speeds most in the country endure. [Read about the experiences of one Philippine student who has endured bad broadband for most of his life.]

The draft law raised the ire of consumers with the insertion of clauses like this:

WHEREAS, it has been observed that few subscribers/ users connect to the internet for unreasonably long period of time depriving other users from connecting to the internet […] Service providers may set maximum limits on the data volume allowed per subscriber/user per day.

NTC Public Relations Officer Paolo Arceo readily admits this, and several other provider-friendly clauses came at the behest of the telecommunications industry.

“[This] particular clause was suggested by public and public telecommunications entities to prevent network abuse by unscrupulous subscribers who violate intellectual property laws, particularly on copyright, by downloading movies and software, similar to abusive subscribers of unlimited call/text promotions which were primarily designed or person-to-person use but used for voluminous commercial undertakings,” he said.  “These types of network abuse limit accessibility to a few instead of providing adequate access for all of the subscribers. Commercial or high volume users may avail of other internet connection packages which have committed higher speeds and allow heavy data exchanges.”

But critics of the proposal warn broadband companies will seek to impose limits starting at 5GB of usage per day, with no limit on how low those caps could ultimately go to help guarantee performance requirements also included in the proposal.

How low can Philippine caps go?

“The proposal demands broadband providers live up to their advertised speeds and be up and running with satisfactory performance at least 80% of the time,” writes Quezon City resident Jose Albas, one of our readers. “Since providers blame ‘heavy users’ for performance problems now, imposing more drastic limits is the cheapest way to hit performance standards without spending money upgrading facilities.”

Cruz from TXTPower believes the usage cap proposal doesn’t adequately address the Philippines’ dreadful broadband experience.

“The NTC misses the entire point of the problematic broadband Internet connections in the Philippines: They are slow, unreliable and expensive compared to other countries in the region. But the NTC would not know this because the agency has not, up to now, sat down, studied and resolved to define what broadband really is,” Cruz said.

Popular Philippine blogger ‘Cocoy’ wrote a letter to Philippine President Benigno Aquino arguing the telecommunications authority is catering more to the business interests they regulate than the consumers they are supposed to represent, and for naught:

The NTC draft memorandum to put caps on Internet usage is regressive. It does both business and consumer no good. It will not encourage telecoms to reinvest to improve their service, and help the broader market unlock our potential.

Broadband in the Philippines has become increasingly important in a country with a troubled economic and political past now re-inventing itself in the new digital economy.  The country’s broadband rankings in Asia, a hotbed of broadband development, has proved an embarrassment for the Aquino government.

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p style=”text-align: center;”>Draft NTC Memo Order for telcos on Minimum Speed of Broadband Connection, December 2010

The World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report ranked the Philippines 85th out of 133 countries, right behind Trinidad and Tobago, Russia, El Salvador, Ukraine, Guatemala and Serbia. To compare, Vietnam ranks 54th — Thailand ranks 47th.

Cutting users off after their daily ration is reached delivers a range of consequences, from from the annoying to a fundamental challenge to free speech.  Jed Mallen illustrates what happens when providers protect their profits at the expense of their customers:

I was downloading the new Slackware release about a month ago via Globe Tattoo and after a while got an SMS message via their app that goes something like — fair usage policy is imposed. 800 mb is the limit. I was using their Php 50/24 hours promo. Yes my download stopped.

How about that? That’s not piracy. That’s a free operating system that I have been using for the last 10+ years.

International rights lawyer Romel Bagares warned that the implications of high volume data caps and other Internet Overcharging schemes had even greater implications: impeding consumers’ basic rights to online information.

“Whistleblower sites such as WikiLeaks process large amounts of information. Also, especially in the Philippines, you have many public schools that use the Internet heavily for educational purposes. Putting in caps would prevent people from sharing as well as receiving information,” Bagares said.

“This is against consumers’ interests, because you have people suffering from ‘bill shock’ as well as denying their right to information,” he told GMANews.TV.

Bagares doubts pirates are the real reason behind the proposed usage caps.

“Konti lang ang pirates! (There are so few pirates!) You’re punishing the majority [of the public] for the actions of a very few tech-savvy individuals,” he said.

Salalima

Bagares’ views seem to be backed by the Commission’s own staff.

NTC Common Carriers Authorization Department Director Edgardo Cabarios told GMANews.TV that the entire scheme originated from the Philippines’ major phone companies.

“There were apprehensions raised [by telcos] over abusive users. This [data cap] is meant to discourage unfair use, to give everyone a chance. The idea is to protect the majority of consumers,” Cabarios said.

But Cabarios also admits that the “abusive users” the Internet Overcharging scheme is supposed to target account for just one to two percent of Filipino broadband consumers.

Unsurprisingly, the companies that proposed the usage limits are publicly praising the Commission’s willingness to insert them into broadband reform proposals.

“[The clause] is consistent with the demands of fair use. This guarantees that abusive consumers of broadband/internet service do not monopolize available capacity to the detriment of other paying customers. The definition of the volume cap can be left to the individual telecommunications providers to define based on the different service plan offers they provide, all in the spirit of competition,” said Philippine Chamber of Telecommunications Operators president Atty. Rodolfo A. Salalima in a letter to NTC commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba.

Elk Grove, Calif. residents receiving letters from Frontier Communications claiming they are using the company’s Internet service too much are getting confusing responses from the phone company when calling to register complaints about the Internet Overcharging scheme.  Even worse, one company official told a subscriber they have to keep the new usage limits secret “for legal reasons in case we have to change it again.”  But no worries, Frontier explained to one customer: if you exceed the secret cap again, you’ll be notified future overages will be conveniently billed on a future Frontier bill.

Stop the Cap! has been receiving dozens of e-mailed complaints from customers upset that the company’s bait-and-switch broadband also comes with uninformed customer service representatives who can’t deliver straightforward answers to customers trying to understand how they can avoid up to $250 a month for 3Mbps DSL broadband service.

“When I signed up for Frontier DSL, nobody said a thing about usage limits,” writes our reader Trina who lives near Camden Park.  “My small business has DSL from Frontier as well and we were horrified when we received a letter telling us we were over-using their service.”

Trina and her husband have four teenage boys living at home, all sharing their Frontier DSL account.  When she called the company in response to the letter she received, the confusion began.

“The first representative didn’t understand what I was talking about and denied there were any limits and said the letter must have been a mistake,” Trina says. “But my husband noticed others in our area were talking about the letter on area message boards so when he called, he got a representative that confirmed the limits were real.”

Trina was told her home would need to upgrade to Frontier’s $249 monthly DSL service plan, the same one Frontier held over the heads of some customers in Mound, Minn. last year.

“I told them they must be smoking crack — are they serious?  There is no way I am going to pay $250 a month for DSL that gives us 1.5Mbps service — not in this world,” Trina says.  “My husband laughed when I told him, saying Frontier is going to drive themselves out of business from this stupidity.”

Elk Grove reader Stephen also called Frontier after he received a letter stating he used over 100GB in a month.

“Yeah, I used 104GB according to my router’s logs and Frontier deemed me a bandwidth abuser,” Stephen writes.  “Of course the company tried to sell me a plan priced at $100 a month for their lousy DSL service we got suckered into on one of their term contracts.”

Stephen said he’d manage to find a way to shave 5GB off his monthly usage and forego Frontier’s $99 offer until he signs up with a competitor and tells Frontier to take a hike.

“It’s one thing to be abused by a lackluster phone company like Frontier who never did a thing for Elk Grove — it’s another to pay them more for their abuse,” he writes.

Stop the Cap! reader Pete, also in Elk Grove, says he can’t get a straight answer over exactly what the monthly limit is.

“When I called, I was told 5GB by one representative, 100GB by another, but get this — when I logged into the ‘Flexnet’ Usage Meter the company tells you to review, it showed I had a 20GB limit,” Pete says.  “I called Frontier on the phone and told them I was so through with them — I can’t stand their nonsense.”

Pete wasn’t alone.  Our regular reader Mike figures his cap was actually 20GB a month if the company’s usage meter was to be believed, and he sent pictures.

“I got their nastygram last month over my usage and now my Flexnet meter shows me over the limit,” Pete says.  “I have been vocal on a local Elk Grove message board so I’m feeling like this is retaliation.”

In fact, Mike’s usage meter depicts him as well over the arbitrary 100GB limit Frontier suggests in their letter, despite not coming close to 100GB of usage.  Ditto for our reader Michelle who lives in Palo Cedro, a community Frontier can largely hold captive thanks to limited competition.

Benjamin, also in Palo Cedro, says Frontier’s move will hurt small businesses in the northern California Shasta County community of 1,200.

“I need high speed Internet to help start my business, which will largely involve uploading and downloading multimedia, (which is hard enough to do on a 1.5 connection) but to increase the cost is absolute insanity,” he says.

Our reader Mike discovered Frontier's usage meter suggests he has far less than a 100GB monthly usage allowance.

Benjamin’s alternatives barely qualify.

“I can either try Clearwire, which works terribly locally and is known for its speed throttles when congested, or HughesNet satellite-delivered Internet, which is overpriced,” Ben adds.

As our readers already know, satellite fraudband is no replacement for real broadband service, because it comes with a “fair access” policy that isn’t fair and doesn’t deliver much access.

“I will fight this any way I have to,” Benjamin says.

John in Elk Grove writes in to say the entire affair is a Frontier shell game.

“It’s pure bait and switch to sell us broadband without limits and then suddenly impose them while we are supposed to be on ‘price protection agreements’ that the company says will keep our prices stable,” John says. “Now we learn it’s all a shell game — they can say we used too much and that doesn’t count with their price protection scam.”

John adds Frontier can change the limits at will, and customers who choose to depart could still face enormous cancellation penalties.

“The Frontier representative I talked to when I called to cancel service told me I owed $300 for ending my contract early,” he said. “I told them to go to hell and that if they tried to collect, I’d personally make it my life’s work to cost them far more than that in lost business.”

Customer anger only increases after speaking with Frontier’s own representatives.

Uh oh. Frontier suggests Mike has already blown through his monthly usage allowance, despite his carefully reduced use of the service.

“Mr. Brown” shares his experience:

I am an Elk Grove resident and a Frontier DSL internet customer. I received the same letter from Frontier about exceeding the 100gb of bandwidth within a 30 day period. It said that I must reduce the amount of use or bump my account up to the next tier of service, a $99/mo business account.

I called the number on the letter to talk to a customer service representative so that they would not disconnect me for not responding within 20 days. I asked him if there is a maximum bandwidth cap. He told me that there is no cap, but that their terms of service says that they can disconnect you if you are exceeding reasonable usage and that Frontier will determine what is reasonable usage. The representative could not help me any further so he connected me with his supervisor.

The supervisor said that Frontier sent this letter out to about 1,000 customers in Elk Grove and that most of the customers who have called after receiving the letter have not questioned them and said they they will reduce their usage.

He also said that there is no longer any $99/mo plan, the only option is to reduce usage. He said they sent the letters out to the costumers who are using more than a reasonable about of bandwidth telling them to use less Internet. Then if they did not, Frontier will send another letter saying that if they use more than a reasonable amount that they will charge the customer for anything over.

He went on to say that Frontier had to remove the statement about the previous 5GB bandwidth cap in their terms and conditions and that for legal reasons they are not going to tell us what the new limit is, in case they have to change it again in the future.

I tried to get him to admit that there is a cap and to tell me what that limit was, but he would not.  He would only say that I would be okay if I did not go over 100gb/mo and that if I do, to expect to receive another letter with the new terms that would allow them to charge my account for excess bandwidth.

The one thing is common with readers we’ve heard from is their urgent search for a new provider.

Trina canceled all of her Frontier services at home and at her business and switched to SureWest, a fiber to the home provider.  Joining her includes Mike, Stephen, Pete and John.  Together, their combined disconnects will cost Frontier more than $500 a month in lost revenue, all because of broadband traffic that costs Frontier far less than 5 percent of that amount.  If each customer shares their horror story with friends, family, and neighbors, the loss in revenue could cost far more.

For customers like Mike, he can’t wait to get his SureWest service installed.  The company offers to buy out current contracts with companies like Frontier valued at up to $200, and their fiber-delivered broadband service leaves Frontier’s speeds in the dust.  Mike says if Frontier gives departing customers a hard time about early cancellation fees, file a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission Consumer Affairs Branch.

SureWest offers 3/3Mbps service for $36.99 per month, 25/25Mbps service for $51.99 a month, and 50/50Mbps service for $181.99 a month.  A $3.99 High Speed Internet features and services charge applies.  There are no limits on SureWest’s Internet service.

SureWest delivers several fiber to the home broadband service plans that best Frontier's DSL speeds by a mile.

Frontier offers 3Mbps service with a slower upload speed for $32.99 per month or 10Mbps service for $44.99, both with a required price protection plan and $6.99 monthly modem rental fee.

“Why in the world would you pay Frontier more for less service,” asks Pete.  “Once they pile on the administrative fees, surcharges and taxes, it’s well north of $40 a month, and you don’t even get the speed they advertise, much less the usage limits they don’t.”

Ontario County, N.Y. has completed its 200-plus mile fiber ring and is now open for business… at least for area businesses that want commercial accounts.

But the county’s Office of Economic Development has no intention of building a 21st century fiber network that consumers can’t use — it wants fiber-to-the-home service for every resident.

The formerly rural Finger Lakes county has become an economic growth spot in western New York, with urban sprawl from nearby Rochester and new high-technology businesses attracted by the area’s relatively low taxes and pro-technology attitude.

The high tech fiber ring is the most recent example of the county’s growth-oriented philosophy.

Axcess Ontario, a public-benefit corporation established to oversee the project, built the ring well under its $7.5 million budget.  In the end, the whole project ended up costing just $5.5 million.

The project benefited from faster than expected contracting work and the installation of a natural gas pipeline, through which some of the county’s fiber travels.  Much of the rest is attached to utility poles that stretch across the county’s rural farmlands and small cities, towns and villages.

Now complete, the project is capable of delivering ultra-fast service from cities like Geneva and Canandaigua to the wine-growing region of Naples, to the outer ring towns like West Bloomfield, Victor, Manchester, and Phelps.

Ontario County, N.Y.

“Our mission from the outset was to ensure that every community in Ontario County had access to fiber, no matter how remote that community might be, geographically speaking,” said Geoff Astles, chairman of Axcess Ontario’s board of directors. “We’re proud to say that not only have we accomplished that piece, but we’ve done it under budget.”

The county says the network is open to all-comers, and eight companies are currently using the network themselves or reselling access to commercial businesses that need the capacity fiber brings.  Among them — Verizon Wireless; TW Telecom; Finger Lakes Technologies Group and its sister company, Ontario Telephone Co.; WavHost; Clarity Connect; OneStream Networks; Layer 8; and Integrated Systems.

But nothing prevents a residential service provider from hopping on board, if they’re interested in providing wiring from the fiber ring to individual homes.

“We’re working with several service providers who now have plans to bring fiber to each individual residence,” Michael Manikowski of Ontario County’s Office of Economic Development says. “That’s a little bit down the road. It’s a fairly complicated technical thing that we have to attract other partners to come to the county to help us.”

“The concept of ‘fiber to the home’ is the ultimate game-changer,” said Axcess Ontario CEO Ed Hemminger. “Once residents have fiber to the home, everything changes. Someone who wants to work from home or start a home-based business can do so with ease. Not only will they have instant access to the online global marketplace, but they’ll also have confidence that their home-based Internet connection will be as fast, as reliable and as competitively priced as any office-based system. Imagine conducting videoconferences on your iPad with business partners halfway across the world, all from your living room or your back deck.”

“This project is going to make a difference in the lives of residents and business-owners for the next 25 years,” he said.

Among those reportedly interested: Frontier Communications, which runs limited fiber to some of the county’s new housing developments, but currently does not leverage that technology to deliver broadband faster than traditional DSL accounts the company sells elsewhere in the region.  Time Warner Cable also covers the more populated areas of county through its Rochester/Finger Lakes division.

Individual communities inside the county could also decide to build their own community fiber service for residents, if they are willing to wire individual homes.

Residential fiber service has rarely attracted commercial service providers, convinced the technology is overkill for most consumers.  Some also balk at the capital costs, which are considerably higher than existing copper phone wire or running coaxial cable to homes for traditional cable service.  But many communities suffering from very low speed DSL service and not well served by cable-TV find doing it themselves can deliver service that commercial companies may never provide.  Without the immediate need for quick returns on investment, towns and villages clamoring for faster broadband can finally have it, without the expense of building and running their own fiber ring.

Axcess Ontario threatens to deliver service better and faster than what is on offer further north in much larger Monroe County, which includes Rochester.  That’s because Ontario County’s advanced fiber network could ultimately scrap Frontier’s obsolete copper wire landlines and call out the incremental, slow upgrades from Time Warner Cable.

The Ontario County fiber ring is a nationally recognized broadband model. Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government this fall recognized the fiber ring as a “Bright Idea” — a promising, innovative solution that can assist other communities as they face their own challenges. And earlier this year, county officials met with the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C., to educate FCC officials about the fiber ring and how it can be implemented elsewhere in the country.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WHAM Fiber Ring in Ontario County 12-29-10.flv[/flv]

WHAM-TV in Rochester reports Ontario County’s new community-owned fiber ring could eventually deliver fiber to the home service to every resident in the county.  (2 minutes)

AT&T customers looking for better service need to put down those cellphones and turn off the computer and pick up a good book.  AT&T recommends Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington, written by Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Perry’s book, which compares Social Security and FDR’s “New Deal” social programs with a Communist takeover is so popular with the Big Telecom, it purchased over 700 copies to hand out for free to state legislators, lobbyists and activists attending a conservative policy summit luncheon.  Oh, and the company paid for the lunch, too.  Total cost?  More than $13,000 — all ultimately paid for by AT&T’s customers.

AT&T made sure every guest had their own personal hardcover copy of the governor’s book, something that didn’t go unnoticed by former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz, who thanked AT&T from the microphone for paying for the books.

“Governor Perry has written a book – a book that all of us very kindly have been given by AT&T,” Cruz said. “Thank you, AT&T.”

AT&T’s gladhanding of conservative state politicians doesn’t come accidentally, reports the Dallas Morning News.  With hundreds of millions in revenue at stake, AT&T’s investment in the state’s Republican dominated legislature guarantees the company’s voice will be heard on important legislative matters.

AT&T has spent as much as $9.3 million to lobby Austin lawmakers and regulators, according to Texas Ethics Commission data. AT&T’s political action committee has donated $494,740 to Perry during his nine years in office, according to Texans for Public Justice.

The latter group told the newspaper AT&T doesn’t get into the book club business lightly.

“It does raise concerns. AT&T has a lot of business before the state of Texas and Texas regulators,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a group that tracks money in politics. “They are generally the largest lobby in the state. They can reach out and touch every lawmaker simultaneously.”

Elected officials who write books routinely find some of their biggest sales come from lobbyists, who buy books in bulk and hand them out at public speaking engagements, or simply shove them into the nearest storage locker.  It’s not about the book, it’s about the access companies like AT&T gain from the goodwill earned from buying copies.

Perry does not profit directly from the book sales, but his political interests do.  Proceeds of the book sales go to the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Tenth Amendment Studies, a group dedicated to protecting corporate interests and “state’s rights.”

AT&T’s corporate interest is protected by the Policy Foundation’s opposition to Net Neutrality, but the group generally opposes broadband stimulus funding, some of which is likely to end up in AT&T’s pockets.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Texas Public Policy Foundation Net Neutrality.flv[/flv]

The Texas Public Policy Foundation invited two Republican FCC commissioners — one current and one former — to bash Net Neutrality and broadband reforms before a stacked panel and audience of like-minded thinkers.  (1 hour, 50 minutes)

Frontier Communications continues to deliver monthly headaches to many of their customers in the form of wildly inaccurate bills that take months and repeated calls to correct.

Complaints are piling up on websites like My3Cents, particularly from ex-Verizon customers sold down the river by state regulators that approved the sale of their landlines to Frontier.

At fault: Frontier’s myriad of promotional plans which deliver discounts only when the salesperson correctly configures the account.  When things go wrong, customers get bills far larger than anticipated:

I’m on a contract for $26.99 per month. Each month the bill arrives showing $41.99 due. Each month I call and the agent confirms $26.99 is correct and a ticket will be put in to correct this. The next month I have to do this all over again. The last two months the agents have examined my account and have hung up on me. That is 20 minutes of phone calls per month. This is pathetic!

This customer was signed to a term contract for a service bundle that is supposed to deliver savings, but only delivers headaches when the bill arrives in the mail.  Frontier is also notorious for marketing service plans without disclosing a myriad of fees, surcharges, and taxes that dramatically increases the final amount due each month:

I have been with Frontier for 15 years, since moving to this area. A couple of years ago, a woman from Frontier was plying the neighborhood (repeatedly) with an offer I couldn’t refuse: around $30 for an unlimited local/LD plan with numerous features. Came with a 1-year contract. BUT when I got the first bill, it was around $50.

I called to query and was told, patronizingly, that “everyone has to pay their taxes.”

Everyone but Frontier that is — the company managed to pull off its purchase of Verizon landlines tax-free thanks to a legal tax loophole known as a Reverse Morris Trust.

After this customer discovered $50 is the new $30, they canceled their service.  That opened a whole new runaround — waiting months for a refund check promised on their final bill.  In this case, it took three months.

“At this point, my feeling is that if Frontier were the last phone company on earth, I’d be using carrier pigeons and a tin can with a string,” writes the exasperated ex-Frontier customer.

But sub-standard service doesn’t stop with the billing, as one Arizona customer reports.  The company’s contention it could bring 3Mbps DSL service to Navajo was an unfunny joke for one customer:

They claim to offer “up to 3Mbps.”  Beware of the words “up to” because this means that anything less can be expected and less is exactly what you will get. I have tested my speed many times and the best I get is around 0.25 Mbps. Not to mention that service gets interrupted almost daily and my Internet disconnects all the time. I called them about this and they said they would send someone. Well some incompetent tech from the Navajo office came here and checked around outside while I was gone from my house and just left a note saying everything was OK. Well, OK and so now what? I just have to accept this mediocre service that goes off and on all day? No follow up? Nothing? Stay away from this company… stay very far away. The only reason they are still around is because they offer the only service in some areas and therefore think that they don’t have to be a legitimate company because they have no competition here.

Frontier’s telemarketing is also relentless, and irritating for many customers as the company comes a-calling to push its two and three year service contracts with Internet and satellite television service.  Not interested?  One customer in West Virginia found that didn’t matter — Frontier started billing them for services they didn’t order anyway:

Frontier is a horrible company. I was sent two bills for Internet and phone services that I didn’t authorize. I called the first time and they were suppose to cancel the service and didn’t. I called when we got the second bill and was put on hold for 20 minutes and the representative was very rude to me and hung up because I asked if we were to receive another bill what was I suppose to do. I believe the reps need some more in depth customer service training.  I had Frontier before and had a problem with them then so I canceled my service. This just proves that they have no idea what they are doing.

Perhaps the only thing worse than getting bad service is no service at all.  Dennis’ Frontier landline has been out of service for a month… and counting:

I am so fed up with this horrible company. We got stuck with them due to Verizon selling out to them. Our phone has been out of order for over a month. Every time I call they tell me they have already fixed the problem but the phone is still not working, so they put in another repair ticket. Sometimes its at least a week before they can get out to “repair” the line.

I call at least once a week. I am using all my minutes on our cell phone plan just trying to get a working phone. When you call customer service they are rude and treat you like you are wasting their time…..isn’t that what they are paid to do? When we had Verizon and they came to repair the phone they would always call or stop by the house to let you know what the problem was and give you their card. The only way to find out if Frontier had been out is to call the repair line and get treated like crap again. They are supposed to come out again tomorrow and if the phone is not working I am going to cancel the phone service and get a cell phone booster for the house and go with cell service only.