SubscribeEarlier this week, it actually looked as if Frontier might actually be listening to their customers. They two-stepped around the threatening exceed 5GB at your peril language in their Acceptable Use Policy by having the delightful marketing people soothe your fears with promises not to cut anyone off or charge anyone extra… for now.
I don’t expect them to change their minds just because we think it’s a good idea. Customers are calling to cancel or threaten to do so, particularly in Rochester as we spread the word. Time Warner is signing up a lot of new customers locally this week as folks exit Frontier. But in other Frontier service areas, it’s apparently still the best kept secret in town and there hasn’t been too much pushback… yet. That’s not too surprising considering there is really no pressing reason to ever go to the Frontier website, so how would anyone know?
While folks in the call centers are being told Frontier is pulling back on the idea of a cap, for now, that’s not what management is thinking.
Indeed in their minds, it’s not the 5GB cap that’s the problem, it was only the way it was introduced to their customers which caused all of the problems. Has Frontier hired Michael Brown, former head of FEMA? Who are these people and why are they still drinking the Kool-Aid?
The game plan is still set – find friendly media to tell the story of the fictional “bandwidth crisis,” send mailers home inside phone bills, try and pass the cap off as an idea that Time Warner and Comcast are already contemplating (so it’s all their fault?), and that there is unfairness in the world without a usage cap, as someone down the street steals your bandwidth and doesn’t want to pay his fair share for it.
If Frontier has a game plan, than so shall Stop the Cap!
We have spent a lot of time and attention on Rochester, and we encourage people in the Flower City to continue sending the message that usage caps are not acceptable, and take your business elsewhere. But now it’s time for us to spread the word to other communities stuck with Frontier Communications. If you are living in a Frontier service area outside of Rochester, the time has come to organize and get evangelical about usage caps. Please either reply with a public comment or send me a private message on our Contact form letting me you want to be part of the Frontier Truth Squad. Then, we can begin to identify local community forums in which we can spread the message of the 5GB usage cap. Let’s get it in the local media, spread it around town, and educate customers about the real facts and their alternatives. Then let’s help them get signed up somewhere else, and say goodbye to an ISP that still seriously contemplates a 5GB usage cap on their customers even after the negative customer reaction and publicity they are receiving.
There is still time for Frontier to repent and restore its good reputation as an honorable alternative to whatever cable has to sell, but time, and customers, are running out. Dump the cap.
Unfortunately for me in the SW Metro area of Minneapolis Frontier is really the only player in the game. Until another provider came come in and provide similar service I will have to stick with them. The minute I can get service elsewhere my mind is made up to go with another provider.
I live out in rural Tigerton, Wisconsin. And for me Dsl was just a dream until 4 years ago, when they put up a Remote Box that brought DSL to the area.
Being frontier is the only game in town, they have me over a barrel with the CAP. All i can do is to comply with cap.
And i am sure others are in the same position as myself.
I do have a question thou…..
Just what kind of overage fees are we looking at?
Count me in from Show Low, AZ. After years of watching them compete with themselves for the sleaziest marketing campaign. (1Mbps “Blazing Fast” while CableOne was offering 5Mbps but with speed caps) I think they’ve reached a new low with the “FREE 5GB” per month. I think I’m the only one left with Frontier since CableOne has been beating them on all fronts Price, Speed, and Quality. I’ve only stayed because they got here first with broadband and I use to keep getting the intro rate. (For some reason they don’t want an established customer. Maybe they’ve never had one… Read more »
“Has Frontier hired Michael Brown, former head of FEMA? Who are these people and why are they still drinking the Kool-Aid?” Kathleen Abernathy (Former FCC Commissioner) sits on the board of directors who once touted that BPL would bring about “Broadband Nirvana” much to the dismay of Amatuer radio operators. Maybe she thinks 5GB is the new “640K ought to be enough for anybody.†Or maybe they consulted with Ted “Tubes” Stevens. “It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets… Read more »
I’m in the same boat in Jefferson County, WV. Frontier is the only broadband available to me other than sat, though much of the area has the cable option. We only got it about 6 months ago, and at first it was pretty good, was getting almost 3Mbps on a DSLAM. But the whole neighborhood would go out every time it rained, and sometimes take days to be fixed. Then we lost connectivity, and it was just us. Frontiers immediate response was to cap our speed at about 1.3Mbps and claim it was a “system problem”. The problem turned out… Read more »
I also have frontier as the only option. I am also in the west metro of Minneapolis. I enjoy the service because we have fiber to the home but, I pay 79.99 for phone and Internet. This to me is the premium I pay for high speed over dial up services. I believe that this price should give me the option to watch a HD movie I can get from my PS3. But I could exceed the cap half way through the movie. This cap makes my PS3 become a financial burden because at times a firmware update will be… Read more »
Hello all; A few thoughts; First; William, as regards BPL. While the Amateur operators where the ones to sound the initial alarm and to openly oppose that transmission method, public services would have also been disrupted. I work around school bus 2-way radio. A decent number of those bus companies use what is known as lo-band, in the 30 to 50 MHz. spectrum. BPL blankets that entire range and any vehicle, be it a school bus, a police car, or piece of so equipped fire equipment would also have its communications disrupted, and likely all the more if the vehicle… Read more »
I live in the far southern suburbs of Minneapolis. For the last week, I have been trying to get people in Frontier’s Burnsville, MN call center and admin offices to release me from my contract. I’ve been repeatedly told by customer service reps and supervisors that I won’t be released and then hung up on. Earlier this week, I decided that I was going to email the customer service contacts listed on their web page. One was a senior vice president/region manager. Others were vice presidents of the regional marketing people. Needless to say, I didn’t get an immediate response… Read more »
I have sent the info to all 4 local TV stations in Rochester. WHAM 13 has contacted me and Frontier and is planning a story about it. I have not heard back from RNEW but I would think that they would be looking at this also since they are owned by Time Warner. I’ll let you know what happens.
If I can get a signed letter in a “letter to the editor” format, I’ll be happy to get it published here. I’m in a small but important midwestern Frontier market.
One more thing to add to the comment above–we do not currently have any other options that are not wireless, and the wireless providers are suspect with poor track records. I’ve done satellite and that is a joke. The cable company is supposed to be offering internet (they are a small regional company) but they have some major infrastructure improvements to make–and they have given no timetable on when this will occur. So any letter I send to the paper should be from the perspective of them abusing us from a monopolistic standpoint, not from the perspective of cancelling a… Read more »
Thanks for all the great comments here. I am going to sit down and start building a spreadsheet of volunteers and we’ll get organized. “Rural” also has a great idea. I will write up several generic letters to the editor that people can use as a basis to write their own and send them in to local newspapers. It’s important to always write such letters yourself because newspapers won’t print someone else’s boilerplate letter even if you sign it. But it’s not hard to write your own, and most editorial page editors hack up and change whatever you write anyway.… Read more »
I live in Clarks Summit Pa and very nervous about what to do with Frontier. I called their customer support after reading a MSNBC article about them limiting bandwidth. Their customer support new nothing of what I was talking about even after I pointed out their “residential” policy changes. It was only after talking to a manager who told me about them sending a letter explaining everything. This is a joke. I have no idea on how they came up with the 5gig number. Heck, just downloading 2 movies from netflix will come close to blowing past that number. I… Read more »
I don’t get a physical phone bill from Frontier any more. I get the bills through bill presentment electronically. I hope they forget to send out the “letter” electronically, then I’ll have another excuse to complain when they implement caps.
Speaking of which, shouldn’t we be seeing this “letter” any day now? It would sure be a coup to get that letter posted here first . . .