Press Releases
07/10/2024
Consumer Counsel Coleman Applauds PURA Decision, $2.5 Million in Civil Penalties to Frontier Communications as a Result of OCC Petition for Investigation
NEW BRITAIN, CT – Today, Consumer Counsel Coleman applauded the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority’s (“PURA”) Final Decision and subsequent Notice of Violation proposing to levy nearly two and a half million dollars in civil penalties against Frontier Communications for the Company’s prolonged and well-documented failure to comply with minimum Quality of Service standards and subsequent reporting guidelines, as set forth in Connecticut law and regulation, between January 2015 and December 2023. Today’s decision concludes a six-month proceeding, initiated by the Office of Consumer Counsel’s January 8th filing of a petition for an investigation, identifying numerous counts of noncompliance within Frontier’s self-reported semi-annual service quality filings.
“Connecticut’s laws and regulations exist to protect families, individuals and businesses from situations that put them at risk,” said Consumer Counsel Coleman. “When an investor-owned public service company is permitted to provide service using the critical infrastructure along our streets and highways – and fails to meet these standards, it is not only detrimental to the public’s safety but a breach of this regulatory compact. As the office with the statutory role to protect consumers of Connecticut’s communications companies, I am proud of the work my team did in identifying Frontier’s failure to provide service at the level consumers deserve. It’s because of that work PURA was able to deliver today’s decision and issue fair but meaningful penalties.”
Connecticut’s certified communications providers, like Frontier, are required to file semi-annual Quality of Service reports outlining their performance on a six-month basis in five categories: Trouble Reports Per Hundred Lines, Maintenance Appointments Met, Installation Appointments Met, Installation Interval, and Out of Service Repair. These categories are each broken down into performance by region (New Haven/Berkshire, Bridgeport/Gateway, Capitol, and East) as well as by average for the entire state. If providers fall below the minimum standard, the report must include a specific explanation for the shortfall and the steps necessary to meet these standards in the future.
As evidenced by Frontier’s own semi-annual reporting, they failed to meet the minimum Maintenance Appointment Met (MAM) standard for 35 months and the minimum Out of Service Repair (OSR) standard for 51 months, from January 2015 to December 2023. In addition, Frontier also failed to file 16 required exception reports for 3-month periods in which Frontier failed to meet the minimum standards, and those reports were, cumulatively, 8,811 days overdue as of December 31, 2023. Directly following today’s decision, PURA issued a collective $2,481,000 civil penalty in accordance with powers afforded to the Authority in Connecticut General Statutes.
Quality of Service standards for telecommunications service providers were established for critical public safety reasons. Connecticut residents rely on certificated communications providers to connect them to emergency services, medical professionals, employers, and other essential contacts. The Quality of Service standards that PURA enforces accordingly require providers to properly maintain their network, ensuring that when a resident picks up their phone to make an urgent call, they are met with a dial tone and are subsequently connected.
Frontier, as the subject of the investigation, was an active party in this proceeding and submitted multiple filings into the evidentiary record – as is standard for any investor-owned utility in a contested proceeding before PURA. Company representatives maintained that during the nine-year period at issue in the proceeding, it has continued its very strong performance in meeting the network reliability metrics and is consistently providing a solid and reliable network with good customer service. Frontier argued that OCC placed an outsized level of importance on the outage duration metrics and there is no evidence that customers find them useful. OCC’s position is that outage restoration is a critical consumer protection and a public safety issue.
PURA’s final decision maintains that Quality of Service regulations existed at the time of noncompliance and remain in effect, and as a result, providers are obligated to comply with all applicable statutes and regulation to protect the public’s health, safety and daily communications needs. Frontier has the opportunity to request a hearing and contest the proposed civil penalty in the Notice of Violation in the next phase of the proceeding.
Comments in this proceeding were submitted by members of the public and the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Today’s Final Decision can be found here, the Notice of Violation (NOV) to Frontier here, and OCC’s initial petition here.
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CONTACT:
Brooke Parker
Communications & Legislative Program Manager
brooke.parker@ct.gov
About the Office: The Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) is an independent state agency that represents the interests of consumers of Connecticut’s electric, natural gas, telecommunications, and private water companies before PURA, federal regulatory agencies, the legislature and courts. OCC’s team of attorneys, accountants, financial and policy analysts appear before PURA to argue for the most reasonable rates while expecting the best utility service possible for all customers.