With a late Friday announcement (the kind PR folk generally hope get lost in the weekend), the FCC has announced (pdf) that they've approved Verizon's $8.5 billion sale of more than 6 million DSL and landline customers to Frontier Comunications. Despite opposition by unions and consumer advocates who say the deal is good for Verizon only, West Virginia last Friday was the last state needed for deal approval. So what was the lofty conditions the FCC affixed to the deal? 4 Mbps broadband to 85% by 2015:Hopefully Frontier doesn't pull a muscle trying to deploy last-generation broadband technology to what will ultimately constitute a handful of additional households. In a statement (pdf), FCC boss Julius Genachowski proclaimed he was "pleased" by Frontier's willingness to play nice with regulators and their dedication to slow, last-generation DSL technology:

I am pleased by Frontier’s robust commitments to increase private investment in broadband in rural America -Easily pleased FCC Boss Julius Genachowski

Of course more than a few people (including an Illinois Judge) have noted that the deal infuses Frontier Communications with so much debt that next-generation upgrades probably won't be possible anytime soon. As it stands, Frontier Communications isn't exactly know for cutting edge connectivity anyway -- delivering 3 Mbps DSL to most markets. What's more, the company recently launched a new over-charging "trial" that could result with those user paying up to $250 a month for last-generation broadband. Such aggressive billing schemes are only made possible by a lack of competition in a carrier's markets.

The company of course also has to suddenly deal with a huge influx of new customers that will triple its size. Companies like Comcast can generally attest to how that impacts your customer satisfaction rankings. Unions and consumer advocates alike are worried the entire deal could wind up like Fairpoint Communications, who acquired Verizon networks in New England -- and then subsequently imploded. For whatever it's worth, Genachowski says he takes these concerns "seriously" -- but found that the benefits of the deal outweighed the risks:In other words, the FCC thinks these users are better off with a debt-crippled, marginally competent phone company that overcharges users but at least wants these users. As opposed to keeping these users under the control of Verizon, who has pretty clearly shown they couldn't give a damn about rural American broadband infrastructure. Still, the FCC could have taken the opportunity to impose a few conditions that raised the bar just a little (gosh, bonded ADSL2+ to 35%? 6 Mbps to 75%?). Instead, as with all U.S. mergers, they timidly assumed bigger was better, and chose conditions that were largely for show.

The last two Verizon efforts to offload unwanted markets (Fairpoint, Hawaiian Telcom) involved using a complicated financial trick (legal since 1996) known as a Reverse Morris Trust to thrust debt, angry regulators and annoyed unions onto fairly stupid small telco executives -- debt free. We use the editorially-aggressive term "stupid" because Verizon plans to return to these markets later and win these users back with LTE wireless broadband. That should work out nicely, given the partners involved will be so debt-crippled -- most users will still be on sluggish DSL by the time Verizon has their LTE network built out.

Frontier has continually insisted this deal won't end like these previous deals did (bankruptcy, users crying, carrier inability to answer the god-damned telephone). Users will soon get to see if that's true -- as Frontier expects the deal to close by July 1. Enjoy your ridiculously expensive 3 Mbps DSL, everyone.