Ariz. Commission Opens Frontier 911 Probe

Arizona Corporation Commission members criticized Frontier Communications' 911 reliability, at a hybrid livestream and in-person meeting Tuesday. Commissioners voted 5-0 to investigate the carrier on recent 911 service outages (see 2106020063). “This is an urgent situation,” said ACC Chairwoman Lea Marquez Peterson (R). Commissioner Sandra Kennedy (D) said she isn’t surprised by Frontier's problems. When the probe is done, the commission should act “very strongly and not just do something to be doing it,” she said. Frontier must acknowledge this is a “public relations problem of enormous proportion,” said Commissioner Jim O’Connor (R). “Your house is burning down.” Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Allison Ellis apologized for the company’s recent service issues and said the company is reviewing its network and systems to better support 911, with one strategy to find ways to increase redundancy. Public safety officials calling in later appeared unsatisfied. “To hear that they're going to do something is, I guess, OK,” but the problems are a “severe public safety concern,” said Saint Johns Police Department Chief Lance Spivey. He cited eight 911 failures there since 2017. Rural Arizonans “shouldn't have to worry about [if] 911 is going to work,” he said. In the past three years, the Navajo County Sheriffs Office submitted about 150 service tickets to Frontier about problems, said Lt. Alden Whipple. Outages affecting all of northeastern Arizona lasted hours, he said: “It’s just unacceptable.”