Minn. PUC Closes Frontier Virtual Separation Probe
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will keep watching Frontier Communications, said members, as they closed an investigation into the company’s “virtual separation” at a partially virtual meeting Thursday. Union officials urged commissioners to keep docket 21-150 open due to their concerns about Frontier investment and workforce levels. Commissioners adopted a decision seeking more information on those subjects in existing Frontier service-quality docket 18-122, where they said oversight will continue.
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The PUC launched a probe last year into what virtual separation meant for Frontier's long-term investment in the state (see 2108260052). The Communications Workers of America (CWA) raised concerns nationally during Frontier’s bankruptcy reorganization review about virtual separation, saying it could mean separating fiber deployment from copper operations, possibly to some areas’ detriment.
Commissioners voted 4-0 to close the investigation and require Frontier to provide information in the separate service-quality docket about its fiber and other investment plans and on what happens with federal infrastructure money. Frontier must also disclose how it will “deploy sufficient staffing and resources including technician staffing to maintain service quality” after the Jan. 22 expiration of Frontier and Minnesota’s service-quality settlement (see 1910170052). The first report is due 60 days after the order, and annually on Feb. 1 thereafter. Quarterly reports currently required by the settlement will also become annual and due that day, commissioners agreed.
It's important for transparency “that the commission do what we can in terms of reporting in the service quality docket to try to encourage Frontier to be upfront and share information with the commission, with the public and with the [state Commerce Department] about their plans for investment in Minnesota,” said PUC Chair Katie Sieben. Commissioners Joseph Sullivan, Matthew Schuerger and John Tuma supported Sieben’s motion. Commissioner Valerie Means was absent.
Frontier supported closing the docket on virtual separation, which was “independent of investment decisions” and a company exercise to better understand costs and assign them more accurately state by state, General Counsel Kevin Saville told commissioners. Frontier will actively seek federal broadband funding, which it hopes will let it expand into parts of Minnesota that today aren’t economically viable, he said. Frontier “vastly improved” service quality over the last two years and now meets 11 of 13 metrics, said Saville: The carrier expects to meet a metric on restoring service in 24 hours by Q2 2022 and to comply with a trouble-report rate metric this year.
Saville cautioned the PUC about investigating spending in the service-quality docket. “Frontier is not a rate-of-return company,” he said. “Our investments in the state … really aren’t something that the commission has jurisdiction [over].” The PUC’s service-quality authority is focused on phones, not broadband, he said. However, Frontier will respond to any information requests by the PUC or state Commerce Department, he said.
Union officials complained about Frontier cutting jobs. Frontier hasn’t invested enough in the state and its filings don’t provide enough information about investment plans, CWA Local 7270 President Caron Turnquist told the PUC: Frontier infrastructure is “old” and “broken down.” The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers worries the company will soon return to pre-settlement workforce levels, said Todd Ingalls, IBEW Local Union 949 business representative.