Frontier Floats Commitments in CPUC Reorg Review
Frontier Communications promised to pay more when it fails to quickly resolve outages in California. Its Wednesday brief at the California Public Utilities Commission also promised more fiber, to get clearance of its bankruptcy reorganization in docket A.20-05-010. Frontier pledged…
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a plan to improve its performance restoring outages within 24 hours, and for three years will double how much it pays or invests when it fails to meet the state standard. The CPUC currently requires carriers that miss metrics to pay a fine or promise to invest twice as much as the penalty. If the telco faces a “penalty of $1.2 million, Frontier will pay $2.4 million in a penalty or propose an investment of $4.8M in lieu of the penalty,” the carrier explained. Frontier would also provide a $5 daily customer credit for outages lasting longer than one day, it said. It promised to bring fiber-to-the-premise to at least 150,000 more California locations within four years and to fulfill commitments from a 2016 settlement on buying Verizon assets, including to expand broadband to 840,000 locations by end of 2022. The Communications Workers of America, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office (PAO) urged conditions. CWA sought conditions requiring Frontier maintain current California workforce, reduce reliance on outside contractors and develop an enforceable service improvement plan that includes expanding broadband. TURN proposed pricing and broadband buildout conditions. The consumer group said the CPUC should require the company to invest in upgrading networks with poor service quality and to increase speed and performance of existing and planned broadband deployments. PAO sought conditions on jobs, broadband deployment and service quality, including to increase workforce numbers to at least meet Frontier's national ratio of customers-to-employees in three years and to require 25/3 Mbps for certain areas. Reorg is necessary to comply with broadband commitments in the telco's 2015 pact with the California Emerging Technology Fund, cautioned CETF.