Frontier Questions Unmet Conn. Service Quality Metrics

Frontier Communications will try harder to meet Connecticut service-quality standards, the carrier said Tuesday at the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURA). Frontier filed exceptions to a PURA draft decision finding that the carrier violated two of five service quality metrics (see 2406180045). The carrier "plans to implement new processes and expanded and targeted resources to improve the two metrics at issue,” and will expand reports it gives PURA. However, pointing to a 74% reduction in its Connecticut landline count since 2015, Frontier argued that service quality metrics haven’t kept up with market changes. The Department of Public Utility Control, as PURA was then known, proposed updating the service standards for that reason back in 2009, Frontier said. "Assessing fines and penalties against Frontier for on average barely missing two metrics that require close to perfection for the last 10 years when these regulations were to be revised and replaced would be unfair and anticompetitive,” the carrier said. The Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel, which originally called for the PURA investigation, applauded the regulator’s draft decision. It “reads as the first action in a sequence of actions leading the largest telephone company in Connecticut ... back into full compliance with regulations established in support of state goals,” wrote OCC: An expected follow-up PURA proceeding to set penalties "will be the action which ensures that the vital communication service Frontier provides to Connecticut is reliable and meets the basic needs of its customers."