Lumen to Explore 'Procedural Options' Following Minn. PUC Denial of Service Quality Petition
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission during an agency meeting Thursday unanimously denied Lumen's petition for reconsideration of an order finding violations of the state's service quality rules (see 2410070044). A Lumen spokesperson told us the company will "continue our extensive efforts to address their concerns while exploring our procedural options moving forward."
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When Commissioner John Tuma asked about efforts to communicate with the state's Department of Commerce, Office of Attorney General and Lumen's union workers, Assistant General Counsel Jason Topp said the company hasn't "been in direct communication during the pendency of this request" and sought "clarification in hopes of sort of having a final direction and working on this moving forward."
The PUC approved an order earlier this year finding that Lumen's CenturyLink violated Minnesota's service quality standard rules and instructed the company to rehabilitate its network statewide (see 2406200036). Lumen sought reconsideration and proposed an improvement plan in its petition (see 2409300012). Attempts to resolve certain issues "have not been successful up to this point, but obviously we're required to comply with this commission order," Topp said. "We're going to do so, and we think that our proposals would improve that," he added. A Lumen spokesperson told us the company was "disappointed the commission did not adopt our proposed modifications to its order, including our aggressive plan to improve service quality going forward."
Tuma also raised concerns during the meeting about a report that said hundreds of households in one city were without phone service due to cable theft. Topp acknowledged the "state of thefts" of the company's cables in Minneapolis and St. Paul. "These are big projects" and "we've thrown extra resources at it," he said, "but it's going to take a bit until these are complete."
Also Thursday, the New York Public Service Commission announced it will conduct an audit of Frontier to "identify and fix apparent operational problems." The audit will "examine customer operations, service quality, network reliability, facility transfers, and pole removals," said PSC Chair Rory Christian. An agency news release said staff had "ongoing concerns" about Frontier because it "continues to miss" the service quality performance thresholds laid out in its PSC-approved open market plan.
The PSC alleged Frontier "failed to pay some of the resulting penalties to ratepayers or provide the required remedies in a timely fashion." In addition, it said Frontier is "lagging on attachment transfers to new utility poles and necessary pole removals." PSC staff will select an independent consultant for the audit that will likely go before the commission in early 2025 for approval.
The PSC's announcement comes one day after Frontier announced its stockholders approved Verizon's acquisition of the company (see 2410250040). Frontier said in a Wednesday news release that about 63% of stockholders voted in favor of the deal, with 10 of the company's top 12 stockholders voting to approve. Frontier didn't comment.