Providers dispute Frontier broadband internet speed claims

A telecommunications provider is claiming it already offers broadband internet in more than 300 census blocks in Idaho, making those areas ineligible for a federal program to improve their internet, but other providers are protesting.

Frontier Communications filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program. That letter included an appendix listing 17,000 census blocks where it said it provided a minimum of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download speed and 3 Mbps upload speed, making them ineligible for the program. Moreover, support for those blocks was added since its June 2019 report to the FCC that purportedly listed all the areas where it offered that level of service.

More than 300 of those blocks were in Idaho, ranging from two each in Benewah and Latah counties to 144 in Valley County.

Frontier filed for bankruptcy on April 15 and sold its Idaho business to another company, which is planning to offer service as Ziply. Because it hadn’t finalized its purchase, Ziply said it couldn’t verify or disprove Frontier’s claims.

But several providers and organizations don’t believe Frontier and have filed letters with the FCC protesting Frontier’s action. In addition to its financial troubles, Frontier failed to meet another FCC deadline for the Connect America Fund (CAF) project.

“While Frontier is missing CAF buildout milestones for 10/1 Mbps service, losing a large number of customers, hemorrhaging cash and seeking bankruptcy protection, it strains credulity for it to claim that it has upgraded service to 25/3 Mbps in 16,000 census blocks in eight months,” wrote Louis Peraertz, vice president – policy for the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, and Brian O’Hara, senior director regulatory issues – telecommunications & broadband for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, in an April 27 letter to the FCC.

In comparison, during the same time period, AT&T said it had added broadband internet to 1,600 census blocks, according to a statement from Intermax Networks, a North Idaho telecommunications company.

“The history of Frontier’s mismanagement tells us that we should be very skeptical of these claims and should not remove these areas from eligibility for future subsidies until Frontier’s claims are verified,” said Christopher Mitchell, director of community broadband networks for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, in an email message.

Frontier did not respond to inquiries from the Idaho Business Review.

Keeping those census blocks out of the auction would mean the federal government wouldn’t fund Frontier competitors, said Mike Kennedy, Intermax president.

“They can preserve their legacy monopoly advantage in those areas by not having a competitor come in to outbid and overbuild them,” Kennedy said in an email message.

Traditional wired telecommunications companies such as CenturyLink and Frontier were frustrated by FCC programs such as CAF when “fixed wireless” companies like Intermax and rural electric cooperatives won subsidy support to build better internet connections to higher-cost areas, he said.

“Many feel that the ‘old school’ are now noticing these developments and have been working and lobbying to find ways to go back to the old system that they had mostly rigged to their advantage,” he said.

Mitchell said he thinks Frontier has a strong interest in making sure the federal government does not encourage competition in areas that it currently monopolizes.

“If Frontier did nothing, those areas would soon be getting subsidies from the federal government to build networks that would compete with Frontier,” Mitchell said.

The problem is many federal broadband internet subsidies are predicated on having no service in a census block.

“If Frontier is honestly able to serve at least one location in each of those census blocks with broadband, the federal government will not subsidize broadband to anyone in that area despite most people in the area not being able to get broadband from Frontier,” Mitchell explained. “Frontier would remain the monopoly for the near future because the high cost and low population density would make it difficult for a new provider to compete absent a subsidy.”