Seven more Washington communities approved transferring local television service franchises from Verizon to Frontier Communications, a major step toward the anticipated 2010 acquisition of Verizon’s telephone, broadband, FiOS and television services to the Connecticut company.
City councils in Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, Woodway, Bothell, Edmonds, Redmond and Woodinville appoved franchise transfers in late November. Overall, 15 communities in the state have taken similar votes, including Marysville, Snohomish County, Shoreline, Mill creek, Brier, Lynnwood, Camas and Washougal.
The Verizon purchase has also been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and the states of California, Nevada and South Carolina.
Steve Crosby, senior vice president for government affairs and public relations for Frontier, told the SCBJ in mid- November that there are many myths about the company across the country, saying he spends much of his time refuting erroneous claims and explaining who Frontier Communications is as a corporation.
“We filed information with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission Nov. 19 to answer many of the questions raised by the WUTC’s staff, which recently announced their opposition to the Verizon purchase,” he said.
The staff’s concerns included a perception that Frontier is not experienced enough nor financially sound enough to pull off their planned $8.6 billion bid for 4.8 million Verizon phone lines in 14 states, including Washington.
Crosby, who once worked for Paul Allen’s Vulcan Co. in Seattle and knows the area, said people have heard about the bankruptcies of Hawaiian Telcom Communications and FairPoint Communications after they bought chunks of Verizon’s business in those two states and then failed to stay in business.
“We are a much different company than those smaller firms. They had to build new lines and networks when they bought Verizon customers. Our Verizon purchases include all the equipment, procedures and personnel. Only West Virginia needs to have new lines and equipment added,” he explained.
Crosby said Frontier Communications has been in business for more than 70 years, is a Fortune 1,000 company and will be a Fortune 500 company after purchasing Verizon. At the end of 2008, Frontier operated 2.3 million access lines in 24 states, providing local and long-distance voice, broadband and video services.
At the end of 2008, Verizon had 4.8 million access lines, 2.2 million long-distance customers, 1 million high-speed data customers, 110,000
FiOS Internet customers and 69,000 FiOS television customers.
“We are a high-touch company. When we sign up a customer our employees set up systems externally and internally to make sure equipment is up and running. Because we focus on promoting broadband service in rural areas, our present company has even given away 90,000 computers to our customers in rural areas so they will have highspeed service. We are an aggressive marketing company and rest assured that this type of program will be included in our new service territories,” Crosby said.
Snohomish County Councilman John Koster received voiced support for Frontier in a letter to The Herald, noting that “Frontier has a track record of providing broadband technology to rural states and is pursuing an expansion strategy aimed at smaller cities and suburbs … there is ample evidence that Froniter is prepared for this transaction … assuring the statewide availability of affordable broadband service is every bit as important as rural electrification was in the 1930s.”
Crosby said Frontier will honor all Verizon union contracts, customer contracts and continue Verizon FiOS and broadband programs as well as expanding them.
“We’ve faced Comcast in other areas, too, and we will compete aggressively with our pricing plans,” he said, adding that Frontier will have a local, community involved general manager in Everett.
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