States Field Fewer Complaints About Frontier Transition

“The issues we experienced during the cut-over have been resolved and our service orders have returned to normal levels,” a Frontier spokesman emailed Friday. “We are excited to be operating in these new markets and confident in our ability to successfully compete.” Transition problems in April led to an uptick in customer complaints in all three states (see 1605090043). CEO Daniel McCarthy said in May that the telco might have lost thousands of potential new customers while tackling integration snafus (see 1605230046).

The carrier cooperated with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Bondi spokeswoman emailed Friday. The Tampa Consumer Protection Division is in daily contact with the company about new and existing complaints, she said. In May, Frontier promised the attorney general it would resolve transition issues (see 1605130045), and the company has since had three more meetings with Bondi’s office, she said. With implementation of the changes promised by Frontier, including a Florida-based customer service number and additional training for Frontier representatives, “the volume of complaints has decreased nearly 70 percent from May to June,” she said. “As long as Frontier continues on this course, it is not anticipated at this time that any further action by our office will be necessary. However, we will continue to work with the company until all complaints related to the transition are resolved, and Frontier continues to cooperate with us in this effort.”

Since April 1, Florida consumers have sent more than 650 complaints about Frontier to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, a department spokeswoman said. After a May call to action by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, the department “has worked with Frontier to return more than $30,000 to customers who experienced service issues,” and it will continue to work with the company to meet customer needs, she said.

The Texas Public Utility Commission received 815 complaints about the Frontier transition from April 1 through July 6, a commission spokesman said in an interview. The rate of complaints has slowed, with about 145 complaints in June, he said. Of the 815 total, a little fewer than 100 are within PUC jurisdiction because the PUC has no authority over VoIP or the Internet, he said. The Oversight and Enforcement Division is investigating and reviewing the remaining complaints, which tend to be related to landline and in areas, mainly rural, that have not been declared competitive, he said. “The Commission has experienced a large increase in the number of complaints and inquiries from customers regarding service issues in the area affected by the change in control,” said a staff report released at the PUC June 9 meeting. “Staff continues to monitor these issues and endeavors to assist in the resolution of customers' concerns.”

The California Public Utilities Commission received 1,563 complaints by June 25, a CPUC spokeswoman emailed Thursday. But the rate of complaints slowed, with the commission receiving only about 150 complaints in June. Executive Director Tim Sullivan has said the commission usually got about 130 complaints monthly about Verizon, but the commission got 584 complaints about Frontier in April and 283 in the first week of May (see 1605190017). He told legislators the Safety and Enforcement Division will decide whether to file its own complaint or seek sanctions; alternatively, the commission may open an investigation or reopen the merger proceeding.

But California Assemblymember Mike Gatto isn’t satisfied with Frontier’s progress, a spokesman said. The Utilities and Commerce Committee chairman still is receiving consumer complaints, though not at the same rate as before, the spokesman said. Frontier may have resolved technical issues, but customers still face billing issues, he said. Gatto's committee hosted the May hearing on Frontier and might convene a follow-up session this September, the spokesman said.

A California outage was “extremely frustrating” to Bill Nesbitt, a security consultant and Frontier customer who works from home in Newbury Park. It took two weeks and an estimated 25 phone calls to get Frontier to resolve a phone outage, he said in an interview Friday. One missed call could have meant losing thousands of dollars for his business, but Nesbitt worked around the outage by forwarding calls to his cellphone, he said. After many days explaining the problem to several Frontier support representatives and repeatedly “getting BS-ed,” he finally received help from a sales associate and the telco fixed the problem and provided a service credit. He filed a complaint with the FCC but not any California regulators, and he hasn’t heard back from the FCC, he said. Nesbitt said his sister in Connecticut faced similar problems when Frontier took over AT&T’s wireline business there in 2014. He hasn’t had any problems since the outage, but said he remains wary: “I hope that’s the end of it.”

Frontier was “overwhelmed” in Connecticut when the AT&T cutover occurred, “especially with respect to customer service people,” emailed Elin Swanson Katz, the state’s consumer counsel. “My sense is they didn’t expect the volume and magnitude of complaints that occurred in the first few months.” She said Texas, Florida and California are bigger markets than Connecticut and likely “a much heavier lift.”

Meanwhile, the FCC Public Safety Bureau is “looking into” a Frontier 911 outage June 27 in Coachella Valley, California, an agency spokesman said Friday. Riverside County requested investigations in letters sent last week to the FCC, CPUC and California Office of Emergency Services, Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit said in a July 5 news release. The state agencies didn’t comment. “The public and first responders rely on 911 to be constantly operational, and it is highly concerning when this vital emergency service line is down for any amount of time,” Benoit said. “We are taking this matter seriously and seeking to give the residents of Riverside County a full explanation and assure them that safeguards are in place to prevent future interruptions.”

The Frontier spokesman said the outage lasted for about three hours and was unrelated to the Verizon transition. “Last week, we experienced a brief 911 interruption in the Coachella Valley,” he said. “Our technicians responded immediately and service was quickly restored.”