Sued by Wisconsin and fresh off of bankruptcy, Frontier asks the state for $35 million in grants – HNGnews.com

Nationally, Frontiers reputation also has taken hits.

Then, in May, Wisconsin, five other states and the Federal Trade Commission announced they were suing Frontier in a federal court in California, claiming the company failed to provide customers with the internet speeds Frontier originally promised. The company has about 80,000 customer accounts in Wisconsin, a company spokesman told The Badger Project last year.

I hope the state will seriously consider the track record of companies to understand which ones have a long record of meeting the needs of residents and businesses, Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative, a Minnesota-based think tank supporting communities telecommunications efforts, said in an interview with The Badger Project.

Frankly, Frontiers record suggests it should not receive a single additional dollar from any government, he added. Local companies, communities, and cooperatives have proven to be much better at turning public subsidies into needed networks.

Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed Wisconsin and four other states from the litigation, but the claims of the FTC and California will move forward.

In an email response to questions, Frontier spokeswoman Brigid Smith said, despite bankruptcy, the company has honored its obligations required by federal funding. She added that Frontier has been awarded state broadband grant funding in numerous states and has fulfilled its grant obligations in all of them.

And she said the companys DSL internet speeds have been clearly and accurately described in our marketing materials and disclosures.

Frontier emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year and said in a press release it would upgrade millions of its internet accounts across the country to modern fiber optic cables from the old and slow copper phone wire.

The company is making its case to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, which distributes the grants for high-speed internet expansion. The PSC awards funding based on several criteria, including whether a project is in an area unserved or underserved by internet providers, said PSC spokesman Jerel Ballard said.

The PSC also considers grant projects based on scalability, impact, matching funds, applicant capacity and performance, service affordability, economic development and public-private partnership, Ballard added.

Overall, Wisconsin has distributed about $72 million in broadband expansion grants to a number of companies and the state legislature continues to give the PSC more funding to expand the effort.

On top of the state program, Gov. Tony Evers announced in May he was setting aside $100 million in federal funds for high-speed internet expansion. The state then received about $440 million in requests from telecommunications companies including Frontier.

Those also include a proposal from the Eau Claire-headquartered WIN Technology, which has a fiber optic network across much of Western Wisconsin and is owned by 31 independent telephone companies. WIN asked the state for more than $77 million.

Spectrum and TDS asked for about $39 million and $29 million, respectively.

The PSC said it will likely decide on grant winners by the end of this month.

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Sued by Wisconsin and fresh off of bankruptcy, Frontier asks the state for $35 million in grants - HNGnews.com