Frontier Communications Caught (Again) Ripping Off West Virginia Taxpayers

from the your-estimates-seem-a-little-high dept

So (for good reason), we keep noting that if you want to see how the American broadband market really works, you should take a close look at West Virginia. As in most states, a lack of competition keeps broadband prices high and speeds slow, with far too many consumers forced to pay a tidy sum for DSL speeds circa 2002. But the state has also been embroiled in scandal after scandal involving Frontier Communication's mismanagement of taxpayer subsidies that were intended to try and resolve this problem.

Local Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre has quietly done an amazing job the last few years chronicling West Virginia's immense broadband dysfunction, from the State's use of broadband stimulus subsidies on unused, overpowered routers and overpaid, redundant consultants, to state leaders' attempts to bury reports supporting allegations that Frontier engaged in systemic, statewide fraud on the taxpayer dime.

Eyre is back again directing readers to a new report by the US Commerce Department's Office of Inspector General (pdf) which found that Frontier pretty consistently tried to game the subsidy system, imposing various "loading" and "invoice processing" fees -- outlawed by federal grant rules governing stimulus funding -- on to invoices submitted to the state. Frontier consistently used these fees to pad their bills to the tune of $4.7 million, and internal memos feature employees clearly demonstrating that Frontier saw this bill padding as a way to glean some additional profit on the taxpayer's dime:

The scathing, 31-page report declared the payments "unreasonable" and "unallowable." Meanwhile, Frontier saw the tacked-on charges as a “revenue opportunity,” according to an internal company email cited in the report. Frontier employees referred to the extra fees as “markups” and “profit."

Keep in mind Frontier had already been fighting a lawsuit alleging that it used a wide variety of tricks to both jack up its original estimates for broadband deployment -- and ensure any subsidies would only be used to shore up Frontier's internal networks, and not to improve overall broadband penetration and competition in the state. This new report notes that one of the tricks used by Frontier was to order and store a massive amount of unused fiber for future "repairs," allowing it to bill more than projects actually cost:

"What’s more, Frontier misled the public about the amount of unused fiber cable — called “maintenance coil” — the company installed across the state, according to the report. The extra fiber, which is stored at public facilities and used for repairs, drove up the broadband expansion project’s cost. Frontier wound up placing 49 miles of spooled-up, unused fiber across West Virginia — four times the amount the company had disclosed to state officials, according to the report.

Unsurprisingly, Frontier insists it has done nothing wrong, despite years of similar allegations across the state. This is the same Frontier that just got done firing a seven year employee because, at his part-time job as West Virginia senate leader, he voted for a new law that would actually help improve broadband penetration and competition in the state. Oddly, state officials (many of the same ones that tried to bury reports alleging the same sort of thing earlier) aren't commenting on the report's findings.

It should be noted that this is how state politics has worked for years for the likes of AT&T and Verizon, who long found it easy to gobble up subsidies and tax breaks, then pay state lawmakers and regulators to look the other way when it came time for accountability over how subsidies are spent. More often than not, these companies are simultaneously being allowed to quite literally write state telecommunications law ensuring that competition in the broadband sector remains muted. All while everybody in the chain professes their unwavering dedication to free markets and consumer welfare.

But Frontier has neither the competency nor the legal and accounting firepower of its larger counterparts, and as it has stumbled closer to bankruptcy courtesy of some questionable business decisions over the last few years, keeping formerly loyal state politicians and regulators consistently looking the other direction has proven increasingly difficult. Still, believing that this ends with anything even remotely resembling accountability and justice remains a very risky wager.

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Filed Under: broadband, stimulus, subsidies, west virginia
Companies: frontier communications


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2017 @ 12:46pm

    well as long as they keep sending the checks - nothing wrong here...... aint that right Pai?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    ECA (profile), 23 Jun 2017 @ 1:12pm

    hOW MANY TIMES...

    how many times has the customer/tax payer/consumer paid MULTIPLE TIMES to get things done..

    WE PAID WILLINGLY and UN-Willingly... and our governments, State and federal, have PAID many times to get these jobs done..

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Hugh Jasohl (profile), 23 Jun 2017 @ 1:17pm

    Re: hOW MANY TIMES...

    As many times as they possibly can.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2017 @ 1:55pm

    If corporations are people, then this one should go to jail. Lock up the entire thing. It's not allowed to do business for the standard jail time for a citizen committing these same kinds of fraud.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Avantare (profile), 23 Jun 2017 @ 2:05pm

    USPS and IRS

    Sounds like what they did involves tax fraud of some sort and depending on how they sent the bills, hopefully via snail mail, then they could face fines from the USPS. The feds did that to Capone. How is Frontier any different? After all corporations are people.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2017 @ 10:45am

    They've seemed to have found a way to make citizens assets an entity that can be held accountable, but not these slippery corps. Must be something to do with the $ the politicians are receiving.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2017 @ 4:05am

    Re: USPS and IRS

    Unfortunately, the state politicians are just as criminal as Frontier or Capone. So you have to rely on federal politicians... or not.

    Another solution, tried time after time in history, is making them one head shorter.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 25 Jun 2017 @ 11:41am

    So the frontier in their name is the boundary they push that shows how much they can get away with, even if it is openly public and they are technically "in trouble". Good to know that shifts the markers for the bigger ISPs. Not that it isn't long obvious that every last one is a fraud.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2017 @ 7:06am

    Re:

    you would think that jailing just one of these corporate criminals would set an example for the next incoming ceo and his decisions to defraud their customers.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Deborah Hall, 24 Jun 2019 @ 8:27am

    We live in Bluefield West Virginia and have had such awful service and communication results from Frontier, and they will not let us talk to anyone above a so called supervisor that repeats the word for word of the CSR. Evidently, the supervisor’s has no more power than the CSR’s. We have called all the internet companies that provide’s internet services to our area, and was told that they would love to provide service to us except that FRONTIER had bought the rights to all the telephone poles around the area and so they the other internet companies cannot use the poles. So, we have no choice in internet providers, because FRONTIER has a monopoly on an all the poles and and services. Any ideas?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2019 @ 4:54am

    Re:

    AEP owns the majority of these poles , NOT Frontier

    link to this | view in thread ]


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