Frontier preps to pull a wireless bait and switch on Californians

9 October 2017 by Steve Blum
, , ,

Frontier Communications is backtracking on pledges made to the California Public Utilities Commission as it successfully sought permission to take over Verizon’s copper and fiber systems in California. During that process, it claimed to be a “dedicated wireline service provider” as it was trying to convince the CPUC that it could do a better job than Verizon…

Frontier is strategically focused solely on wireline telecommunications and has a long and successful history providing those services. Unlike Verizon and other large telecommunications carriers that have multiple business divisions—such as wireless and international—that compete for capital resources and management attention, all of Frontier’s capital and human resources are concentrated on wireline communications services.

Not any more. In a recent filing with the Federal Communications Commission, Frontier (along with Windstream and Consolidated) said it’s moving ahead with plans to spend federal subsidies on wireless service, rather than wireline upgrades (h/t to Trish Steel at the Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County for the heads up)…

Frontier, for example, has already begun testing fixed wireless in very rural [Connect America Fund-subsidised] areas. As Frontier’s Chief Financial Officer has explained, Frontier believes that this could be a “good solution” to the deployment challenge “in very rural America[,] and if it works the way [Frontier is] expecting it to work…[Frontier] will deploy more of that next year.”

On the face of it, Frontier’s plans for fixed wireless broadband service are similar to AT&T’s. Both companies are required to offer service at a minimum of 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds in federally subsidised areas, and putting up an access point with wide coverage is one way to claim they’re meeting that obligation, even though the service is unlikely to be accessible to all, or even most, of the people under that umbrella.

There’s one key difference between Frontier and AT&T, though. Because it’s also a mobile carrier, AT&T already has wireless sites, licensed spectrum and a deep reservoir of wireless engineering talent. Frontier has none of it.