Verizon selling CA, FL, TX Services to Frontier

When I read about Verizon agreeing to sell it's "wireline" customers, service, and equipment in California, Texas, and Florida to Frontier I took that to mean they were selling their copper wire services only. But apparently this is not the case. This WSJ article says the sale includes FIOS as well:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-sell-certain-wireline-assets-for-10-billion-1423171649

In today's LA Times Fontier had a full page ad saying they were looking forward to expanding their network by absorbing all Verizon accounts (phone, TV, Internet, FIOS) in these 3 states.

So how is this going to work? Will Frontier take over the Verizon servers that provide our service? Will we have to se up all new billing accounts? What about VOD service? The whole thing seems rather mysterious.

There are several postings about bad problems in previous Frontier takeovers:

http://www.courant.com/consumer/bottom-line/hc-bottom-line-frontier-att-takeover-20141204-column.html

As of right now I do not have a very good feeling about this. Fortunately I live in an area where there is an alternative provider (Cox) but I know most people won't have this luxury.

Accepted answers

db909

@bbinnard wrote:
As of right now I do not have a very good feeling about this. Fortunately I live in an area where there is an alternative provider (Cox) but I know most people won't have this luxury.

Huh? Most people on FIOS do have a cable option.

All comments

db909

@bbinnard wrote:
As of right now I do not have a very good feeling about this. Fortunately I live in an area where there is an alternative provider (Cox) but I know most people won't have this luxury.

Huh? Most people on FIOS do have a cable option.

ThorntonE

I just received a letter from Frontier Communications indicating that beginning in March 2016, they will be taking over the wired home telephone service in my area (Tampa, Florida).

Since Verizon has established extensive bundling of services (Home Telephone, FIOS internet, FIOS TV, and for some folks WIreless), what does this mean?

Are we going to receive separate phone bills now? What will happen with the bundled deal discounts we are currently receiving (supposedly a 2 year deal)?

Since Verizon has apparently terminated our contractual obligation to them, are we allowed to select another home phone service besides Frontier?

ElizabethS

The Frontier site should answer most of your questions, either in the FAQ or by searching for a topic. http://www.meetfrontier.com/

ThorntonE

I looked there, and everything is confused.

The letter states Frontier is taking over Verizon wired services, but doesn't clarify if that means phone, TV and internet as well. The FAQ doesn't specify.

Quite frankly, the whole deal seems shady.

tns2

Yes they are taking over all services except wireless in California, Florida, and Texas. Phone, Internet, and TV.

bbinnard

April 1 is only 2 weeks away and I have heard nothing from Frontier about the cutover. Are they simply going to surprise us?

Justin46

@bbinnard wrote:
April 1 is only 2 weeks away and I have heard nothing from Frontier about the cutover. Are they simply going to surprise us?

What are you looking for? Frontier has pretty much said that we will not see any real changes in the beginning - hope that is true, but all we can do is wait and see I think.

There are some threads here in the Verizon Forums on the subject, particularly a sticky one in the Email Forum here by Nilsa with a link, if you go to the Frontier website you will find a fair amount of information (Q&A, etc.), and finally there is a Frontier forum at dslreports.com with an onging discussion on the changeover. You might check those out to see if any concerns you have are addressed.

One thing that will be different is that Frontier apparently does not host (or sponsor) any forums of their own, unlike these Verizon forums. So our choices for help will be phone or email, or help from other users at dslreports.com. Some of us are trying to get dslreports.com to expand their forum support for Frontier, and add a Frontier Direct forum similar to the one they have there for Verizon, but no action yet, at least that I know of.

Maybe there are other information sources that I am not aware of, hopefully some others will chime in.

__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV: Extreme HD, Internet: 50/50, Digital Voice
VMS Enhanced Service: 1 server, 2 clients
Keller, TX 76248 (VHO 1)
Soon to be a Frontier FiOS customer

tns2

They have their site FOR the conversion. Hopefully it will show some updates. http://meetfrontier.com/

I have started to see local Frontier ads mentioning they are coming.

AOL , rather than Frontier, is handling the email switch over. Hopefully you have already successfully switched over as have most of us. We are hearing some people who had big problems with the switchover of email.

bbinnard

I've been cjecking the meetfrontier site every few days for updates. Now I see that starting 23 Mar 2016 it will be possible to set up a Frontier ID and account. It will be interesting to see how they manage transferring the billing information. I am also curious about what will happen to our IP addresses, and if they change what sort of service interruption there will be when that happens.

I don't use Verizon email so that change will not affect me. Here in the Los Angeles area I have not seen any ads about Frontier but my guess is they basically say "Don't worry; keep smiling".

cstockl

Nice of Verizon to inform it's customers to this change in a more timely manner! I just renewed my services a four or 5 months ago. I would not have renewed them if I new this was going to happen! Has anybody out there read the reviews of Frontier? The are horrible!!! My question is, since I was not notified of this change, am I obligated to stay with Frontier after the change takes effect or can I just say goodbye to Frontier without worrying about the contract I agreed to?

concernedone

it does not make sense or even lousiest sense to Verizon to had sold most of communications to Frontier as Frontier is a very low class company loaded with problems....cannot function the same ways a Verizon...if Verizon is doing this then Verizon will dissappear? Are they laying off their people....as Frontier is a low cost carrier with tons of problems and bad reputations....maybe somebody else can take over Frontier and Verizon should think twice in giving their services to other not experienced companies.

tns2

Widely talked about here for the last year. And some notices were posted. Probably few official mail items, although I got at least one. TV ads have appeared in the last month here in Bradenton and I saw one on Tampa stations.

I would suspect that if you renewed for two years that you would be obligated to stay with Frontier or pay the ETF, but don't actually know that.

_dot

any idea what happens to deposits?

Waambo

I just got the email today, 3/27. Went to Frontier to set up the account, but it wouldn't accept my verizon username or account number. It did accept my home phone number. Edit: well, once I did add my phone number it asked for a 4 digit authentication pin from my "Frontier Bill". This doesn't bode well...

WestCoastGaucho

This is utterly poorly handled by Verizon. I have NOT received any information or any notification until yesterday via "snail mail" (USPS) from ... Frontier. I almost threw away the mailiing thinking it was junk or or an illegal note. I am a long-time international communications and change management consultant and this is a great example on how NOT to do this.

I have a bad feeling about this. The many executives I have gotten to know and coach have been trained and incetivized to focus on the short term gains and communicate first and foremost with their board and (large) shareholders... keeping their customers in the dark until they see fit in benfitting them and not the customer. This industry is not like the retail business or a small business (which is being squeezed out of America and it will lead to our demise, if not already) where they need to consider the customer's impact, backlash and retorts, etc.

I am having the government authorities look into this here in California and in Washington D.C. This is very "sinister" in my experience. All I can say is "Caveat Emptor!" I am going to challenge this along with many others, as this is technically a misfeasence of the agree-upon agreements with all customers.

WestCoastGaucho

One word - - ROKU

Verizon needs to hear about how this is being handled.

WestCoastGaucho

Elizabeth (and Verizon) - I have to be very honest with you an VZ. Something smells funny. There has been ZERO communications with your customers. I am sure that your CEO's board and the top buig shareholders knew of this months in advance, if not earlier. This borders on misfeasence and agreement violation.

I am long-time international communications and change management consultant who has helped many major companies and small businesses and also large non-profits. This is a classic ecxample of a botched change which affects many customers. Some are using this service for their own small business and this is a huge legal and financial risk to VZ and its executives.

Many of us have NEVER received any information on this purchase and service change until less than one week before we are supposed to change. I traval a lot and this smacks of government-type beaurocratic behavior. I suggest that VZ provide a "incovenience" credit equal to a 33%+ of the current monthly balance.

Bottom line, VZ has not planned or managed this change well at all and are hugely inconveniencing its customer base. Those of us who have been with you a long time and have a business are irrate about this. Those of us with reosurces are going to look into this and finally, we need an email and a letter sent out before April 1, 2016, when Frontier (and VZ) force us to re-register.

Thank you for your "ear." Expecting a good, PROFESIONAL and HONEST reply.

CRobGauth

This is not the first time Verizon has found ythus.

Pretty sure they have paid lawyers a lot of money to make sure they are everything under the terms of their contract.

Surprised too hear you haven't been contacted before now.

Other people have stated they have been and already working to sign up frontier accounts.

Waambo

i'm getting concerned about this, as well. Since I received the email today and not being able to complete the transfer (a post on Facebook from someone else trying it says that Frontier can't access our Verizon info until 4/1), I started checking out Frontier in earnest. I have seen a lot of complaints about service via Frontier. I notice that Frontier does not have a customer to customer forum like the one we're using now. Does our term agreement transfer to Frontier? What about the arbitration agreement?

Waambo

We're all gonna love this part of Frontier: https://frontier.com/docs/docs/fbfairaccesspolicy(adc-revision).pdf

stanfordc777

WHY??? I have FiOS here in Texas and have been perfectly happy. Now they are dumping us to one of the worst Internet providers in the country! And with very little warning or notice. Thanks Verizon, you just screwed over a lot of customers. Now I'll be switching to another provider. I was perfectly happy, having FiOS with 150/150 speeds and have had no problems. We will see how this goes come April 1st but from what I have read all over the Internet, it doesn't look good.

bbinnard

https://frontier.com/docs/docs/fbfairaccesspolicy(adc-revision).pdf

Basically it says Frontier broadband service is limited by usage caps, but it doesn't say what the caps are or if they are at all related to the type of service you have. It is also not clear when this posting was made, if it is still applicable, or what options there may be.

What it does say is you can buy "get out of jail" tokens that allow you to exceed your caps, but how this actually works is not stated. I did a Google search on "Frontier restore tokens", but the results were not particularly informative. Apparently the tokens originiated with Hughes service, which (apparently) Frontier took over. Most of the postings about this were old. So the whole situation is quite unclear.

I'm going to post a question abotu "Restore Tokens" on the meetfrontier,com website and see what sort of response I get.

Edit: well all that did was get me a list of other unrelated questions. I'll try an online chat tomorrow.

_dot

this is further down in that document...have you called it?

Restore Tokens can be purchased and added to your account by calling a Customer

Service Agent at 877-451-1801

tns2

Plenty of notice about this in other sources. And, If you notice. this thread is over a year old. True only saw info in snail mail about a month ago.

The info about California, Florida and Texas moving their email to AOL earlier than the rest was also a big hint.

bbinnard

Very interesting....

I had an online chat with a Frontier rep just now and he explained that the usage caps etc. apply only to Frontier customers who have satellite service. This makes sense becuase Frontier did purchase the old Hughes service back when Hughes was supplying Interent servic e to end users.

So usage caps is one issue we won't have to deal with.

saicam53

Yeah, I have reservations about this myself. I've been with FIOs for years now, best services I found, next to no outages, speed greater then what I pay for. I've read alot of bad reviews with Frontier. I siged up fro Verizon, not them. I have 3 more months on my contract then it might just be time to move along.

athenian200

Frontier sent us an e-mail saying that we're going to be switched over to their services next month, and I've heard nothing good at all about them. I've heard that they have tech support that doesn't even know what Ethernet is, that they sometimes allow outages to go on for months, and that they try to get away with double-billing people every month.

They even claim that we're expected to honor any contract with have with Verizon, even though Verizon won't actually be providing service here anymore. So now I'm trying to decide whether it's worth the ETF just to avoid doing business with Frontier. My only other option is Time Warner, but I've read so many horror stories about Frontier that they actually sound worse than any of the four "legitimate" ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, or Time Warner.

However, they said that the date of the change over is April 1st... so I'm wondering if it's supposed to be an April Fool's joke. Kind of a suspicious date to pick.

I mean, if this is real, then why would I be hearing about it for the first time from Frontier? Why didn't Verizon say anything to us about this?

smith6612

Sounds like Verizon's support.

For a while, I used to utilize both Verizon DSL and Frontier DSL. Verizon DSL has generally been the better performer, although that has changed in recent years. Frontier DSL has not always been the best performer, but it was down far less than Verizon DSL was, I had less of an issue with buffer bloat or MTU overhead (thanks to PPPoA), and their tech support was always willing to dispatch a tech / create trouble tickets BEFORE Sending modems if I reported throughput less than half of my rated circuit. The one thing Frontier never fixed, prior to me disconnecting my DSL with them due to non-use, was the night time congestion issue. although it has since been a few years, I'm sure that's fixed.

Overall, though, Frontier treated me well. It sounds like so far the network cutovers have been going fairly smooth, with a few small hiccups. I know areas like California and Miami have been problem areas for Verizon in regards to network congestion, so hopefully Frontier's network changes help for the best.

itsNate

Based on my chat with Frontier today, there will not be speed data caps for TX FiOS internet customers.

Engineerik

I have had the same experience as many responders on this thread in that I only found out about this switch when I recieved a letter via usps from Frontier welcoming me effective April 1.

I am quite disappointed in lack of direct communication from Verizon. I also find it laughable to read comments on this forum telling people that there was plenty of warning if they only would have read the forum.

I have never used this forum prior to posting this message and I did not even know this forum existed. Furthermore since when is a user forum the proper way to notify customers that you just sold your business to someone else and all accounts are moving to a new company?

If not for Frontier contacting me I would still have absolutely no clue that my service was about to change providers in 2 days.

While I have been happy with the reliability of fios, I am extremely disappointed in Verizon regarding absolutely no notification of this change.

Airwolf1

@Waambo wrote:
i'm getting concerned about this, as well. Since I received the email today and not being able to complete the transfer (a post on Facebook from someone else trying it says that Frontier can't access our Verizon info until 4/1), I started checking out Frontier in earnest. I have seen a lot of complaints about service via Frontier. I notice that Frontier does not have a customer to customer forum like the one we're using now. Does our term agreement transfer to Frontier? What about the arbitration agreement?

Yes all contracts are being rolled over and ETF's will still apply.

One can try hard to fight it if wanted, but good luck.

People on other forums are saying that their internet is actually working better then before since almost everyone is now on Frontier as far as internet goes.

So that's one plus, but we will all have to see what happens come the first.

We shouldn't see any difference in service (hopefully)......the billing is what I'm more worried about.

Justin46

@Engineerik wrote:
I have had the same experience as many responders on this thread in that I only found out about this switch when I recieved a letter via usps from Frontier welcoming me effective April 1.

I am quite disappointed in lack of direct communication from Verizon. I also find it laughable to read comments on this forum telling people that there was plenty of warning if they only would have read the forum.

I have never used this forum prior to posting this message and I did not even know this forum existed. Furthermore since when is a user forum the proper way to notify customers that you just sold your business to someone else and all accounts are moving to a new company?

If not for Frontier contacting me I would still have absolutely no clue that my service was about to change providers in 2 days.

While I have been happy with the reliability of fios, I am extremely disappointed in Verizon regarding absolutely no notification of this change.

I agree that Verizon really has not done enough to notify customers about this. And I think a very large number of customers are going to be surprised by the change. BUT the reality is, if you pay any attention to the news, be it newspapers, cable and local news, business websites, etc., this sale was announced I believe in Feb. 2015, and has been in and out of the news since then as Verizon and Frontier worked to get regulatory approval, etc. Most people SHOULD be aware of the change (and yes, I know they won't be, but they should).

We can hope for the best. I really expect to see very little change, if any, at least initially. If you need help, or want to change your service, you will contact Frontier instead of Verizon. Many Verizon employees are included in the sale to Frontier, so the person that comes to your home or business to fix things may very well be the same person that did the original install.

As someone previously said, much of the internet connection stuff has already been changed to Frontier, so that should be in pretty good shape.

For TV, Frontier bought some Verizon services, including FiOS, some years ago in Indiana, Washington, and Oregon, so they do already have experience with that. I think we will be good here also, although this is one area where I am concerned that maybe, in the not too distant future, Frontier might start making changes - channels, monthly rates (after any contract expires), maybe other things.

I am not surprised about this, I knew about it when the sale was announced, but there is really nothing we can do about it, other than either wait and see how it goes (or maybe change providers, to cable or satellite).

One thing about forums: obviously this is Verizon's forum. Frontier apparently does not sponsor any forums, and as far as I know have no plans to (hope I am wrong). But at least there is a Frontier forum at dslreports.com, so that is one place to look for information or help.

Here's hoping all goes well Friday and beyond!

__________________________________
Justin
FiOS TV: Extreme HD, Internet: 50/50, Digital Voice
VMS Enhanced Service: 1 server, 2 clients
Keller, TX 76248 (VHO 1)
Soon to be a Frontier FiOS customer

athenian200

I really want to know what kind of law they have that allows an agreement I make with one company to bind me to someone I never agreed to do business with, who I may not even trust.

If I sign up to do business with a top-tier national ISP, I don't expect to be legally slammed to some no-name fly-by-night company that I've never heard of before with god-knows-what quality of service and told to suck it up.

If Verizon doesn't want to provide my services anymore, fine. But that should mean I get to go with any other provider in my area. Instead I get treated like a commodity to be brought and sold against my will to any provider they deign to stick me with, no matter how bad their reputation or how sleazy their business practices are. This is like if I hired one contractor to do a job that was BBB rated and listed on Angie's List, signed a contract, and then had some fly-by-night corporation with one-star reviews come along and tell me that they were going to be doing the work, that somehow or another the other guy had too many contracts and sold off the responsibility to whoever would take it. And then if they break something or injure me in some way, I can't do very much about it. It's like my choice of what company or person I trust enough to do business with is irrelevant, and I'm just expected to accept the service from whoever will provide it on their behalf, no matter how bad they might be, as a substitute. I have to say, this is the last time I sign a two-year agreement... if they can screw me over like this and slam me to some other ISP I may not even trust, then it's not worth the risk. Last year was the first year we ever tried locking the rates in... I regret it already and I'll never lock myself into something like that again. If they don't get the option to hurt you on price, they just pull the rug out from under you in some underhanded way like this.

This is missing the big picture, though. I have a feeling this is pretty much the beginning of the end for wired Internet services. All of the major companies seem to want to divest that part of their business... so pretty soon those expensive data plans will be the only way to get online, as dead-end companies like Frontier let the infrastructure rot and ever more wireless towers are built out to improve that side of things. Fiber probably won't be maintained, we'll get rolled back to DSL speeds after a few years, and then find ourselves begging to download everything on our phones at any price because it's the only decent infrastructure available. I'm pretty disgusted with with the whole situation after reading about it.

bpeterson2

Exactly how I feel about it athenian200. They do currently want to keep the Northeast customers and focus on them, but they will probably toss those customers out too. This is the lowest of the low and I hope Verizon goes bankrupt. I am thankful I do not have Verizon Wireless.