South Carolina PSC Asks Staff to Show Why Frontier USF Freeze Should Continue
South Carolina's Public Service Commission gave staff another week to complete an initial assessment to show state USF funds should continue to be withheld from Frontier Communications in response to a 24-day outage in Georgetown County. At livestreamed oral argument…
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Tuesday in Columbia, PSC members supported by voice a motion by Commissioner Tom Ervin. The nonpartisan commission last week held November’s monthly USF payment to Frontier in response to an Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) petition seeking suspension of USF money so it can audit whether the carrier is appropriately using the support (see 1911260023). Tuesday, Ervin said his motion would shift the burden of proof to ORS: “This is a drastic remedy to take such a large source of funds away from a struggling company.” Commissioners are concerned about maintaining residential landline service and fixing outages quickly, but the telco took remedial steps and provided information, he said. ORS should work overtime to expedite its audit, and share more evidence supporting its request at a follow-up meeting Tuesday, Ervin said. Frontier attorney Chris Terreni said the commission shouldn't continue holding funds in the meantime, and Commissioner John Howard also questioned why the payment can’t be released now. Ervin responded that the company is welcome to request mandamus if it wants funds now. “Frontier has taken measures … to change the way it responds to an outage of the duration and size of what occurred in St. Luke's,” Terreni told commissioners. Its workers "tried their best" but "needed more resources and they waited too long to bring them in.” Frontier apologized to customers affected by the outage and provided three-month bill credits, the lawyer said. The carrier can’t promise there won’t be future outages, “but our response is going to be better,” he said. No evidence shows Frontier isn’t using USF money appropriately, and suspending that “is not logical or consistent with due process,” he said. Commissioner Florence Belser asked if anything in statute, PSC guidelines or precedent supports ORS’ request. ORS lawyer Chris Huber agreed the request is unusual but said the office can seek it as the fund’s administrator. Belser later asked, "If there is a problem with their response and their procedures, is that sufficient to warrant yanking USF funds?" Outages worry Commissioner Swain Whitfield. "One of the biggest concerns of the commission," he said, "is basic landline services being interrupted to the point where emergency services are compromised.”