CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Frontier Communications acknowledges its shortcomings in West Virginia, and it’s vowing to make improvements.
The promise comes more than a year after Frontier emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, yet amid concerns about the company’s presence in West Virginia as exhibited in a recent complaint to the Public Service Commission of West Virginia.
Allison Ellis, Frontier’s senior vice president of regulatory affairs, said Monday on “MetroNews Talkline” the period of “financial distress” made it difficult for the company to modernize its network. Frontier completed its restructuring efforts in May 2021, in which the company eliminated $10 billion in debt.
“We are a new company. We have new leadership at the board level and our executive management level,” she said. “With our healthier balance sheet, we’re now able to invest in communities across West Virginia in the way that we have been wanting to for years but really, frankly, didn’t have the financial capability to do.”
Frontier’s investments include upgrades to its existing network. Jason Fields, the company’s senior vice president of operations, said Frontier is investing $200 million toward improving networks in West Virginia.
“We started building that new network at the end of last year, and we’re aggressively pursuing it this year,” he added. “It’s the number one opportunity for us to improve the service and the ability for broadband, voice and other services we can transport across that network.”
The state Public Service Commission is furthering its investigation into Frontier’s services in Kanawha County. The Kanawha County Commission submitted the original formal complaint on July 12 following phone and internet outages on Laurel Fork Road. Frontier restored the services and apologized to the Kanawha County Commission for the problem.
Fields said the company has increased its efforts to address service issues in West Virginia, noting an increase in the volume of calls.
“This year has been dramatic. We’ve seen a 30% increase,” he said. “I’ve got people from out of state that came in, helping us catch up because we’re behind.”
Frontier is hiring technicians to provide services in West Virginia as the crews build the new network.
Questions regarding Frontier additionally follow the Public Service Commission’s handling of a case involving Altice USA subsidiary Suddenlink, now known as Optimum. The commission issued a fine surpassing $2.2 million for the company’s failure to provide adequate services to West Virginia customers.