California to Hold Hearings on Ugly Verizon Frontier Transition California lawmakers are calling for hearings to investigate just why problems continue a month after Frontier acquired Verizon's unwanted DSL and FIOS customers in California, Texas and Florida. While some customers in our forums report no problems, and even a few say service has improved under Frontier, many others complain of outages that have lasted for weeks, DNS problems, and customer support that can be difficult to get a hold of.

Assemblyman Mike Gatto, chairman of the California State Assembly's Utilities & Commerce Committee, issued a statement yesterday (hat tip, Ars Technica ) indicating some form of government penalty if Frontier can't get its ducks in a row. “There has been an alarming rate of telephone and Internet outages in Southern California and consumers are frustrated with the lack of a solution to this months-long ordeal,” Gatto said. "These problems need to be resolved swiftly. Cities are unable to live stream council meetings and residents are at risk because of the inability to dial 911 in an emergency. My committee will hold hearings on the impact on our constituents and the appropriate government response if these problems persist." Local news outlets in California, Texas and Florida remain filled with stories by customers that are fed up by the sloppy transition. Frontier originally had promised all remaining problems would be resolved by mid-April, but such complaints have now persisted into May. Frontier, meanwhile, issues the same statement each time the company is asked why the transition wasn't smoother, and just what kind of a timeline the company sees for resolution. “We are continuing to resolve customer issues as they come to us,” Frontier says of the ongoing problems in California. “As you’re aware, we are transitioning more than 1 million customers in California to Frontier-provided services. With a transition of this size and geographic scale, there will be issues that need to be addressed and that’s what we’re focused on.” “We are continuing to resolve customer issues as they come to us,” Frontier says of the ongoing problems in California. “As you’re aware, we are transitioning more than 1 million customers in California to Frontier-provided services. With a transition of this size and geographic scale, there will be issues that need to be addressed and that’s what we’re focused on.”







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Most recommended from 54 comments



TIGERON

join:2008-03-11

Boston, MA Motorola MG7550

1 edit 10 recommendations TIGERON Member from a bud who works for Verizon in transferring to Frontier "Frontier didn't get screwed. The systems stay the same for one year and we gave them an entire IT team to support the backend in the transition. We worked with them for MONTHS before the transition. This is not Verizon's fault. The reality is that they are using the exact same system we do for FiOS. We just cut the ties in the database so the 2 sides don't talk. The outages are all on frontier. They got our systems and our people and they still can't make it work. Vz tried to tell them to convert rather than transition status quo. We even built them a proprietary version of our ordering system. In my mind it was gift wrapped. Interestingly, customers started complaining of slower throughput immediately after Frontier took over... And they are incapable of restoring service... Even though it's the same people and the same systems."-end quote



So whatever issues Frontier is still having, it is on them NOT Verizon.



Speaking of which, Karl did you by any chance look at Frontier CEO Dan McCarthy had to say about all of this? Quote : "And Im proud to say that it has been very successful, he told analysts, adding that fewer than 1 percent of old Verizon customers had been disrupted. Frontier is thrilled that it executed a major tech transfer -- an enormous undertaking in terms of size and complexity, McCarthy told analysts -- and that 99 percent of customers had no disruptions."-end quote



Let's hope this forces the company to publicly address the current ongoing problems. jjeffeory

jjeffeory

join:2002-12-04

Bullhead City, AZ 3 edits 8 recommendations jjeffeory Member Waiting Been on the phone for 45 minutes so far to their customer service about account suddenly being locked, higher bills than Verizon for less service, and the streaming issue ( HBOGo et al).



So far they've fixed nothing and have me transferred to sales where I'm on hold.



UPDATE:

Now at 1 hour 5 minutes, still no sales rep, but I can now log into my account to see that they lowered my bill to match Verizon. The rep said that they have to pay different charges than Verizon. Yea, right. Then why lower the bill for the next month?



UPDATE:

1 hour and 20 minutes. Been on hold since 45 minutes. Think the Ca people would find this acceptable?



UPDATE:

118 minutes on the phone.



They did NOTHING except remind me that I have an ETF from Verizon that transferred over. Hello TWC!

kdwycha

join:2003-01-30

Ruskin, FL 6 recommendations kdwycha Member Clueless Even their social media team is clueless. Rebooting your router will not make phone and internet suddenly start working when the ONT is not properly provisioned for service causing the outage.

tacoma

Bleeding Dodger Blue

Premium Member

join:2001-05-18

Murrieta, CA 6 recommendations tacoma Premium Member Sooo glad I jumped ship a couple months ago. I really loved the FIOS product. Amazing speeds, great TV. It did cost a fair amount for the top tiers, but it worked well. Near 0 issues for 2 years in Temecula/Murrieta.



The month before the transition, I switched to TimeWarner. It was cheaper and the speed difference wasn't deal breaker, and the tv service is just as good as Verizon FIOS.



I see nothing but issues with FIOS out here when discussing with my neighbors and from the posting on the FB Temecula/Murrieta Talk pages.



Widespread issues out here: Channel guides are missing/incomplete. TV service is intermittent. Internet has been down more than up. Bill went up 10-20%. IP Phone not working for days on end. OnDemmand broken. Many of these issues last for days.



Sooooo happy I actually had the guts to eat the ETF fee and get TimeWarner. Very happy with TimeWarner so far. PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

join:2013-03-10

Zubrowka USA 4 recommendations PX Eliezer1 Premium Member Frontier Foul-Ups



Think of Wyatt Earp, F-Troop, Dodge City, and so forth....!



Everything that Verizon has unloaded to Frontier (and Fairpoint) has had problems.



And [AT&T] unloaded Connecticut to Frontier, that was no picnic either.



See also:

»Former Bell System units abandon most of New England. Never has a company been better named than "Frontier".Think of Wyatt Earp, F-Troop, Dodge City, and so forth....!Everything that Verizon has unloaded to Frontier (and Fairpoint) has had problems.And [AT&T] unloaded Connecticut to Frontier, that was no picnic either.See also:

JDH

@verizon.com 4 recommendations JDH Anon I've seen nothing but problems since the transition happened Can't get the guide, on demand is gone, and my DVR fails. Best part of it all, I'm still getting charged

tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA 4 recommendations tshirt Premium Member Too little, too late.... should have made Verizon leave a deposit

JUST IN CASE, it didn't go smoothly THIS TIME

pjsutton

join:2013-06-25

Kempton, PA 2 recommendations pjsutton Member No city council meetings! I like how the inability to stream city council meetings was placed before a lack of 911 service. Gotta love the government! McBane

join:2008-08-22

Wylie, TX 2 recommendations McBane Member From an Engineering standpoint... It's pretty obvious they didn't even plan the backbone transition. THEY HAD ZERO INTERNET PEERS ON DAY 1 IN THE BEGINNING IN CA/TX/FL. That type of planning for such a large deal is deplorable. I wonder if Frontier involved ANY OF THEIR SENIOR ENGINEERS in this deal planning at this point.



Obviously bad decisions being made at Frontier at the top has screwed everyone involved in this. I can't imagine an engineering geared management walking into this mess. Unqualified people making decisions they shouldn't.

Nothing

@rr.com 2 recommendations Nothing Anon Size vs Odds Anyone who thought this was going to be a smooth transaction was and is crazy. You're not going to migrate all of those customers over night without ZERO problems. Odds just don't work that way.