CWA and Others Urge Conditions as Part of Verizon/Frontier Approval

off Frontier’s debt. The transaction would affect wireline communications “for tens of millions of voice and broadband customers in states served by Frontier and Verizon,” CWA said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-445. The union said Verizon’s goal of upgrading and expanding Frontier’s fiber network is encouraging. But the companies “provide no specific details on their turnaround plans for Frontier, such as the amount of funds Verizon intends to allocate for additional fiber upgrades, the geographic areas that will benefit from such funds, specifics on how Verizon plans to maintain and improve quality of service for customers that will not get fiber upgrades, whether Verizon wants to continue Frontier’s excessive use of low-wage and inadequately trained contractors for construction projects, and whether this acquisition could result in reduced capital investments by Verizon in its current footprint,” CWA said. The Coalition for IP Network Transition said the FCC should approve the deal only on the condition that the two companies phase out their legacy time division multiplex and feature group D (FGD) networks and agree to “interconnect with all other carriers” on an IP basis. The two companies have been silent on that issue, the coalition said. “The Applicants plan to bring only some of their customers a 21st Century IP-based network, while leaving other carriers with out-of-date TDM and FDG technology and facilities, and excessive access charge bills,” the coalition argued: “That, by any fair definition, does not serve the public interest.” Intrado Life & Safety urged attention to public safety issues. Since providers like Verizon and Frontier refuse to interconnect their wireline traffic to the next-generation 911 network in session initiated protocol “and insist on TDM interconnection at their service edge, the 911 network is captive to TDM with no viable alternatives for the next three to five years,” Intrado said. “Because Verizon and Frontier are two of the main contributors to the current 911 TDM dilemma, the Transaction will accelerate and deepen the ongoing harm and threat to public safety and 911 reliability during the transition to NG911.” Intrado called on the agency to “examine the potential public safety impacts of the Transaction and consider appropriate conditions regarding 911 TDM circuit availability and pricing to mitigate such impacts.”