South Carolina PSC Asked to Suspend USF Funding to Frontier After 24-Day Outage
Frontier Communications' South Carolina USF could face a freeze pending an audit to determine whether the carrier appropriately used the funding. The Public Service Commission opened docket 2019-352-C Wednesday after the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff petitioned Nov. 8…
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to suspend and hold state USF disbursements to the carrier. Frontier blamed antiquated equipment for a 24-day outage last month in Georgetown County, but tried to repair rather than replace or upgrade it, ORS said. “It is unclear how much additional equipment Frontier has in South Carolina that is in such an antiquated state as the equipment at issue here.” There weren’t enough local technicians to work on the problem, ORS added. The firm is the largest USF recipient in South Carolina, scheduled to receive about $6.6 million this year including about $553,000 this month, ORS said. “This raises serious concerns about whether Frontier has been utilizing the USF ... for the programs for which the funds were intended, including investing and maintaining its South Carolina network to provide basic telephone service," or is using the money for other things. The company plans to respond by Monday, its attorney wrote Tuesday. The telco didn’t comment Thursday.