Frontier Now Ignoring Complaints About FiOS TV Hikes

go ahead... if you think state regulators will permit price gouging... telecom isn't in the pockets of the state & federal government like the oil industry.

I say suspend their licensing and force frontier to eat the costs.

Good luck with that. State regulators, indeed, will not permit "price gouging", but even if they had the authority to set rates for Frontier's Fios Pay-TV product, their pricing would be based on a guaranteed rate of return / cost-plus accounting, and the regulated price would be higher than Frontier is asking with its latest increase.

It is the content owners and networks who are playing fast and loose, raising rates 100% and more, mandating bundles, etc - who are driving up the cost of pay-tv. The state will simply look at the "costs" presented by content providers, shrug, and approve Frontier's request.

NO cable company is charging $500 activation to install a cable-tv product (unless your not within the current build geography of being served at all). Not even VERIZON! Most cable companies have negotiated rates which are not 100% increases. Basic cable shouldn't be more than $50 stand-alone and $30 in a bundle. If Frontier thinks they can charge more than the going rate, then regulation of rates is what regulators are there for-- to protect the customer. What's more than that, if they dont' want to be a cable-tv service provider, get out of the business. Become a dumb broadband pipe and that means offering prices for FTTP which are on par with what Verizon offers.

* You're also looking at this with rose colored glassses! These companies (Frontier / Fairpoint) took on *MASSIVE DEBT* which they are finding every excuse in the book (LEGAL OR NOT) to raise revenue per customer! There's only one answer for being screwed by the Verizon deal and that is to file bankruptcy and wipe the slate clean. and the sooner, the better. Nobody is going to loan to a company with such massive debt, so you might as well go bankrupt & rebuild that repuatation from the ground up not owing anything rather than working from the perspective of having to pay for Verizon's debt just to own 90% copper and 10% fttp. The reality is, if Frontier can't offer better service than ANY other competitor, then there is a de-facto monopoly with any other company-- not a duopoly as some suggest. This is widely known in the Comcast / AT&T and Comcast / Qwest geogrpahies/footprint.

The FIOS Pay-TV installs I've seen took 5-6 hours on site, and that was after the neighborhood and the building were pre-wired.

Forget the cost of the Moto STB spaceheaters or the 'sophisticated' router/ONT, the labor alone will eat up $500.

It seems rather inconsistent that you're chiding Frontier/Fairpoint for "massive debt", while you're ok with them financing the substantial cost of the FIOS install for the customer?

As for Frontier assuming VZ's debt - they also got the assets. I don't see what the problem is. What, do you expect VZ to keep the debt, but give up the customer base?

Competition, monopoly/duopoly - natural and de-facto, clearly, vary by density, fortune, and politics. I'm very reluctant to endorse any form of new / renewed regulation, as it generally will only condemn those already poorly served.

But I'd be ok with examining each incumbent telco on a CO-by-CO basis, and establishing some very nominal performance thresholds and deadlines, which if not met, trigger a combination of faux-competition (line sharing/UNE-P) , pole-rental discounts, and a limited set of basic rate regulations.

But that would only apply to basic broadband and telephony, not pay-tv, where the vast majority of customers have competitive options.

Someone, or a set of people, are setting about the ruination of Frontier. I am constantly baffled by their crazy moves! Please don't misunderstand me: I had Frontier here in Elk Grove, for 10 or so years and promised upgrades never materialized. It is telling when the Tech that shows up at your premises ends up being just as frustrated as I, the subscriber.
They work for some folks, for others they are the only choice. As for me, I am glad and thankful to be rid of them.
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The weekend is here, grab a can of beer!

I don't know what is worse, never having it, or having it but then having it ripped away. The former probably is the worst of the two, but the latter hurts a lot more.

It is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all?
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Bit Torrent is my DVR.

Yeah, I don't think so. Have you folks ever tried Broadstripe? We have the un-joy of having them here in some of Seattle's, Central district, First Hill, Queen Ann Hill and so much more. Imagine paying $160 for cable and internet and having it go out almost twice a week (or more) and when you have internet it's likely that it's around 56k but you pay for 15mbps. The DVR'S are a joke. Be happy you folks have the opportunity to get Comcast.

Can we please vote Steve Crosby the worst exec of the year? There are dozens of smaller TV providers making a profit yet these tools are trying to dump 100,000 paying customers? If that's your plan, just let me have them for free. I'll work out a way to make it profitable and you can lose all your customers. It's a win win situation.

... and give them to another company willing to provide the service.
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~ Insert a Funny Sig Here ~

100,000 customers is nothing to sneeze at; has anyone come up with a reason Frontier thinks they can't make any money providing that service?

It baffles me why they'd let that asset, which they purchased, wither on the vine as opposed to selling it or (*gasp*), operating it.

It may be a losing business line for them. They probably cannot turn a profit after the programming costs since they do not have the Verizon sub numbers and bargaining muscle.

this is not true at all. Much smaller and cheaper independent and private telecos do it all the time, so how can frontier not?

I challenge you to find a independent or private provider that offers the same selection and number of channels. Last month I poked around at probably a dozen different fiber providers and no one came close to the number of channels.

In my area we have a local, independent cable company, and I think their lineup is pretty darn good.

»www.secv.com/birdsboro/i ··· rds.html

It's not FTTH, but it's HFC node+2 architecture, 860 MHz and the whole B2 tier has been migrated to digital. DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS is installed and new speeds likely to come later this summer.

Not really fair to compare a cable company to frontier. The whole idea of profit goes out the window because of the wide area that frontier has fiber deployed. In other words frontier aint making a dime unless they upgrade everything. Since they can only dream about doing that (no money). They will just get out of it.

That could be true. Compare to the millions of customers on Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, etc.

The reason they want to get rid of the video side is they don't have there own video feed. They currently are paying Verizon for this feed. One is located in Bloomington, IL and the other is in the Tampa Florida area. So they charges there paying to run over someone else's fiber explains why they don't these customers. You ask why wouldn't they build there own center? Because they don't have the money to.

breaker27,
You may be close to the truth there. But, they do have money. They'd rather pay out stock dividends, than invest capital in the future.

(Verizon FiOS has 2 satellite farms: Bloomington, Illinois and Temple Terrace, Florida .
Reference here: »gadgetress.freedombloggi ··· v/11065/ )

Anyway, Verizon has probably given Frontier a drop dead date, when Frontier has to be off the FiOS TV feed from these 2 farms.
Someone at Frontier probably calculated the capex headend costs for all their FiOS TV areas in Oregon, Washington, and Indiana.
They probably also like the TV referral fee revenue from DirecTV, without having to do anything.

Anyway, this appears to show that Frontier is comfortable being mediocre, living in the past. They like old fashioned cost-plus regulated hardwire telephone rates. They like copper, and fear fiber. If they keep their regions on slow internet speeds, they can wait til Uncle Sam hands out $$ for faster broadband.

The people you elect allow this to happen. They have allowed telecom and media companies almost exclusive rights to territories and to stifle competition in any way they can. Once they accomplish this they begin to cap and throttle, raise prices and limit your use of the same service.

Since we're all but assured we can't outlaw the corporate lobbyists or their dollars the only way to resolve this is to vote out any politician who hops in bed with the lobbyists or their wallets. Nothing else will stop this.

Frontier is going to rip down/abandon in place the FIOS fiber in a few years. Just watch.

I guess this goes to show that the FiOS brand can only survive under the name of Verizon FiOS. Frontier has failed to deliver on keeping the service competitive and appears to have no interest in keeping it alive by adding all these barriers. When Verizon sold areas in the NE to FairPoint that had FiOS, FairPoint renamed it to FAST and havn't changed a thing to enhance or improve the service.

FAST still has the same original speed tiers as it did when FairPoint bought it as FiOS:
»www.fairpoint.com/northe ··· lans.jsp

Frontier customers can expect very similar if not the same out of Frontier FiOS.

"Oregon regulators feel they were lied to, Portland's Metropolitan Area Communications Commission (MACC) accusing Frontier of having this plan all along, going so far as last week urging consumers to go sign up with Comcast."

Dear Oregon Regulators,

Did you get any of the requirements for Frontier in writing? Yeah, didn't think you did your homework.

Signed,

Those of us that warned you

This is the same Frontier that tried to put 5GB caps on DSL service in Rochester NY area s few years ago. They are a bunch of morons only looking at the balance between pissing off customers and gouging.
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The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

Many statements here are true:

1. Service is provided by Verizon and delivered by another company's fibers.

2. State regulators did not go far enough in guaranteeing services to the customers (but are limited by what they can really do with television services).

3. Frontier wants MAXIMUM profits from all services; selling DirecTV proves more profitable than FiOS TV (at least on the balance sheet).

There are also other factors: Frontier is run by marketing/sales people with little or no real life knowledge in telecommunications or television services. What matters most to the executive management team are profits and how to maximize them. What is lost with them is: Foresight (FiOS being an advanced product that is profitable and able to grow), the loyalty of customers (messing with a package will have you lose them altogether), that MyFiTV is NOT a television service (just a click n' pay site high profits once again) and that it will COST them money to go the path of VDSL (as much of the old GTE plant is 26guage).

Word to the wise for the Frontier management: You have damaged your reputation beyond belief at this point, but do the right thing and keep the fiber television service without the "fake" hikes. You can get away from the Verizon cuffs, buy elsewhere and actually grow the services into the metropolitan areas of Seattle and Portland. If other "smaller outfits" can operate at a profit with fewer subscribers, you can too.

Oh - and do hire industry experts in place of marketing people - they are now your downfall.

"Grow the service"? If Verizon can't afford to place anymore FTTP at this point in time no company can. I don't want to hear about Google's vapor fiber.

Let's look back fondly at what was said.
»Verizon/Frontier Transition Going Smoothly In Oregon

But wait there is more; the hand writing was on the wall.
»Frontier FiOS Customers Lose Some Services With Transition
This is something unusual; someone that figured it out before those that should have known.
I am amused by the bickering that went on in that thread about whether or not Frontier could use the name FiOS and for how long. A pro Frontier poster listed a URL where Frontier proudly uses the FiOS name. That page is gone and a search of FiOS on Frontier's site comes back; "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?