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Ziply Fiber Takes Over Frontier Communications’ Northwest Operations
Frontier Communications‘ Northwest operations and assets are now Ziply Fiber. Ziply is a new company that is investing $500 million to improve its network and service.
Frontier sold the assets to WaveDivision Capital in partnership with Searchlight Capital Partners for $1.35 billion. The operations and assets are in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
Ziply Fiber is inheriting the network, which it is improving as part of its $500 million investment. It also has 500,000 customers across the four states and a workforce of nearly 1,000 employees.
| Be sure to read our look back at the Frontier chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, how it unfolded and where the company goes from here. |
Frontier filed chapter 11 bankruptcy last month as part of a restructuring agreement. As part of the agreement, the company promises to cut its debt by more than $10 million. With the sale complete, Frontier operates in 25 states.
Ziply Fiber is kicking off a number of projects to improve capacity and performance for its customers.
Ziply Fiber’s Harold Zeitz
“We see significant opportunity to improve the quality of the networks for our Northwest communities. At Ziply Fiber, we are engineering a state-of-the-art, modern network that is purpose-built for the internet,” said Harold Zeitz, Ziply Fiber’s CEO. “[This] means our customers will have a better online experience than is possible with any other technology.”
Ziply Fiber is “actively working through a partner program, and considering how best to do that” for its customers.
| Keep up with the latest channel-impacting mergers and acquisitions in our M&A roundup. |
Broadband Question Marks
In other news, Frontier is under fire from small internet providers who question the accuracy of the provider’s broadband reporting. Frontier claims it deployed broadband to nearly 17,000 census blocks.
In a Federal Communications Commission filing, Frontier said it deployed 25/3Mbps broadband in these census blocks. Therefore, these blocks should be removed from the list of blocks where ISPs can get money for future deployment.
The FCC plans to distribute up to $16 billion to ISPs that commit to deploying broadband in census blocks without internet service of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. The funding is part of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).
In a separate FCC filing, NTCA – the Rural Broadband Association – said many members “frequently field pleas” from consumers living in Frontier’s service area in need of access to “robust broadband service.” The NTCA represents about 850 small ISPs.
“This experience – and their decades of experience in serving sparsely populated rural areas of the nation more generally – have caused NTCA members to question whether the filing accurately reflects conditions on the ground changing so quickly in so many places in such a short time,” it said.
The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association are also skeptical. They said it is hard to believe Frontier was able to provide voice and 25/3 Mbps service in each of these census blocks in just eight months.
Frontier faced a looming bankruptcy during this period, making it hard to believe such a large deployment, NTCA said.
Ken Mason is Frontier’s senior vice president of federal regulatory affairs. He said Frontier’s updated broadband filing and challenge to the list of initial eligible census blocks are accurate.
“This reflects broadband coverage resulting from more than five years of Connect America Fund II (CAF II) deployments to more than 600,000 residential and business locations,” he said. “Frontier filed these census block data updates to its Form 477 before the FCC released the initial list of RDOF eligible areas. But due to the timing, Frontier’s updates were not incorporated.”
Frontier reports broadband availability if those speeds serve any portion of a census block, Mason said.
“By making this filing, Frontier will not be able to bid on these locations under RDOF and is actually guaranteed in 2022 to lose the support that we are currently receiving under CAF II to offer broadband service to these high-cost-to-serve locations,” he said.
Frontier over billed me and transfers me to Ziply Fiber, whom transfers me to Frontier, whom transfers me back Ziply. I am angry. I refuse a $40.00 + increase on Dish TV, that is ridiculous. I am told I have a credit of $20.00 but that does not solve the problem. My bill is $179.12 this month, when the last bill was $137.03. I understand the increase but $40.00+ ? I want to pay my bill but I refuse this amount, how can this be solved?
Ziply requires users to set up bill pay on their website, giving them your bank account information. They don’t provide their billing zip code so you can set them up as a payee in your bank bill pay account. As a former banker, this leaves me wondering what their practice has been in taking money from customer accounts in the past. I don’t EVER allow a company to debit my account at their convenience. If they won’t trust me to make my payments as agreed, I choose not to do business with them.
For now, I will wait to see if I get a paper bill with the information needed to set up an outgoing payment from my bill pay. If not, I’ll be shopping for a new internet provider. Or maybe I’ll just cut the cord.
Have been trying to get service with Frontier but have been Ignored, They say they will call me back but never have. Live in West Virginia
Absolutely terrible company cut off my internet status with no warning!!!! Cant communicate at all lies and deceit from their personnel Where i live they already call them zippo because thats what you get from them. Hope they fail as soon as possible , all of us should be contacting the FCC asap to get them removed. I live in Montana. FIND ANOTHER COMPANY AS SOON AS YOU CAN RUN
I am a current customer of Frontier in Beaverton, OR area. I was previously a Verizon FIOS customer, and got transitioned to Frontier when Verizon sold their Northwest business. I am not the least bit surprised that Frontier could not make a go of it. As a customer, it was painfully clear to me that Frontier was not a technology company, but was run by bean counters. No vision, no execution. Their policy seemed to be to milk the existing customers they acquired from Verizon fiber, for all they are worth, and try to ride it out.
When Verizon FIOS started offering gigabit service in other areas for a reasonable fee a few years ago, I hoped that Frontier would as well in my area. I am already connected to their fiber network. Unfortunately Frontier had no such plans. I was still being overcharged for a slow plan when Comcast is offering much better speeds at great prices. Why would I want to pay more for slower speeds? Most customers would run away. I was going to switch to Comcast next week. But now I will wait and give the new owner Zipply a shot. They are promising giagbit speeds at reasonable prices. And with that, they have my attention.
On a side note, if Zipply requires access to my bank account, that is a non-starter. I can give you my credit card for autopay. But if you have a hard requirement on access to bank account, then I am afraid we will have to part ways.
I didn’t think that Frontier could get any worse, but you folks are proving me wrong. Our internet is dropping 6 to 8 times daily for various lengths of time. We are still paying the bill with very poor internet.
Ziply charges $35/$40 for the same service that Frontier charges me $68. So now ziply will be taking $68 a month for service that costs $40? No, I don’t think so.
Is this what I is to be expected from Ziply, I went from a slow download speed of 5Mb to 3Mb. I pay for 50Mb. This is not acceptable and needs to be addressed immediately.
Frontier Had a good protection plan but Scence Zipley took over its not worth it thinking of changing
iinternet wiith comcast or some one else.
Give Ziply a chance to get things corrected. It will be a big job to upgrade and improve the old Frontier network, and to regain customer confidence.
Look for another provider if you recently had Ziply Fiber take over your Frontier account. They will send you an email stating “no changes have been made to your services…”, however, that’s not true. If you had an HBO account with Frontier, you also had access to HBO GO or who knows what else. Ziply no longer carries the streaming services provided by Frontier. Looks like they want to charge you the same, but not provide you with the same services. I contacted them about the problem and got different answers from their customer service – 1) they’re currently working on a contract with HBO; 2) They no longer carry the streaming services provided by Frontier; 3) I wrote about my complaint to Chat, but they hung up on me! Bad news!!
My internet fell on Monday and I called and they couldn’t fix it. I have to wait until Tomorrow to have a tech come to my house to fix it. I’ve been a customer for a month. I can’t believe this .
I wondered what was going on with my WIFI, didn’t realize Frontier was out of the picture. It is dropping several times per day, which is very frustrating for my wife, who works from home and needs continuous internet access, as well as for the rest of the family when we’re trying to watch movies, etc. Frontier wasn’t great, but Ziply seems to be terrible. Considering gritting my teeth and going back to Comcast.
Frontier wasn’t too bad but since it changed to Ziply it’s been horrible. One day late with payment after being off work with this whole Covid19 thing. Seriously, one day late and they shut me off. Customer service is a joke, when you can actually get to speak to a person, they have no clue what they’re doing. I left Comcast for crappy customer service and I’m very close to going back.
Darrel Prose
I have the same problem that you do. I think it may be time for either a class action suit or at the very least a flood of complaints to the Attorney General’s office to investigate how they can charge for service and not deliver.
on June 9th, our 2 lines of Telephone, TV, Internet was moved to Comcast.
1)206-533-1207, 2)206-533-1206 2 lines binding at 1 account
with this switching, we duly request you to disconnect all of above services.
please be advised this request must be honored at your administration with our billing.
in the future we might return to your service again and absolutely not awhile, we wish.
have a good day!
I definitely think a class action lawsuit needs to be filed with ziply fiber. It’s been over a month and a half and we still have next to nothing as far as on-demand content goes. When I called them, they said it’s a free service they provide so if it isn’t there they don’t owe any compensation— that we should just be happy that we get it at all. Who wants to start it?!?!
I’ll gladly jump on board! Frontier was horrible and Ziply is even worse.
All these comments are 100% accurate! We change name on our account end of April (Frontier) and a few days later had no internet service. Called to get info as to why and found it is now Ziply and spent almost entire day to get assistance to troubleshoot. At that point I said please cancel our service we are going to Comcast. They in-turn said that they are unable to cancel service as it just started a new billing cycle so will need to pay through 5/24/2020. Now I have 2 accounts one for $24.53 and one for $129.21. I called and after 45 minutes of explaining the call was dropped! I then waited for this billing cycle to see if all changes were made. NOT !!! I still have 2 bill no adjustments were made and I now owe $24.53 for one and a whopping $213.80. Called today spent 15 minutes with a nice person in collects who couldn’t help with details so she transferred me to billing. 30+ minute hold time and return call request couldn’t be put through. What the hell….this company is unreal. I still have no answers and will need to call again and waste my time
You all know why they sold out! Cuz they were breaking the law and doing alot of shady sh##. Stealing data when hacking their clients. So when the law suit pops up the new owner will be the fall well at least that’s what they thought. Lol lmfao. This is the same with all other internet providers such as Comcast and many others. Just like at&t and many other cell companies that offer internet. The data their stealing is peoples whole lifes work that is worth millions of dollars. And when the person they targeted quits their own work cuz these guys steals it all. They pay that persons families members to steal any other hard drives and storage devices that has more of that victems work. That even had evidence of them hacking and stealing the victems work. These all are working with the CIA, FBI local pd, trump and Obama’s agenda that all are apart of the occults.
I had Frontier. We have a router. We have a problem with our internet. Before Frontier left they gave us another router. Still have internet problems. Zipley Fiber took over. Still having a problem with our wifi. Don’t know if Zipley Fiber should give us another router or if these people just don’t have a clue. I’m forever turning the internet off for a few mins. Turning off my phone for a few mins. Works for a day or 2 and then continues to shut down. So sick of this.
Looks like Ziply has a lot of issues still. I’m thinking I should keep looking for now, until they get the bugs worked out ( if they ever do ). I may give them a chance later if I feel they have improved like their promises say. I only pay $45.00 from Comcast so their prices don’t seem much better.
Ever since the ironically named Ziply Fiber took over Frontier’s failing business our internet connectivity has become very intermittent and frequently totally unusable for many hours per day. And when it “works” we are seeing less than 1% of the 50Mbit/S bandwidth that we are paying for. Streaming services like Video On Demand haven’t been usable for over a month and talking to an alleged Ziply customer service representative is like talking to a fencepost, except with significantly less comprehension on their part. Every since the “investment group” took over Frontier’s failing business, service has actually gotten far worse. As bad as the aptly named Frontier was, Ziply has set a new low that is far beneath that. By all external appearances, Ziply Fiber is rapidly selling off Frontier equipment in an effort to maximize the speed of their return on investment and milking the former Frontier customer base. At least that would explain why the average daily bandwidth has dropped to well under even 0.1% of what it was prior to the Ziply takeover.
All yall complainers need to pay for internet only (fiber NOT cable providers) and get their basic plan and cut your cord and obligation to your current providers and THEIR CORED out of your lives.
. My fam paid 238/mo with Com**** for just internet and cable. Say internet is 60, and that leaves 140 for cable channels and the 30 or so for state taxes and equipment rental
Of which the **fam is senile in age but childlike in spirits and energy** didn’t know they were being sh** on… but I did.
I heard em em mentioning wanting to ask me to help with the bill and when I looked at it the end of the convo was “if I can get you the same just cheaper can we try it” and we were locked and loaded!
For 72 a month i/ you get 500 up/down fiber internet
In Oregon- that’s amazing. And sleed tests prove it!
I got rid of the cable box and install an android box at the tvs and hooked em up.
Android boxes are cool cause of why? Android. So its familiar, Intuitive, responsive, lightweight. Duh!
Because I’m the gamer and broadband hog and boxes are most efficient out of the box to run on wifi, I had to chose. So, I ran ether net cords under the carpet where the carpet meets the bottom of the wall, and on the side of the stairs, tucked under the carpet, as it was able to be pulled up and away from the other wall and I’ll bed damned it fifty feet didn’t go from the router in my room downstairs and into living room!
Once hooked up, sign into good, and open Google play store
Download MOBDRO! Keep it updated!
And viola.
Inside its broken down by movies or TV. Genre. Channel. Network animation kids etc.
We’ve been using mobdro since March this year, and other than flipping the input switch and going to the over-the-air antenna and watching local news via local signal and every thing else….? Viola Zipley!
Cut their cord into your life. Get high speed internet and a VPN and save yourself tons!
238 times 12 is 2856. 70 times 12 is 840. That’s dollars. And that’s a big set of numbers. Both for services rendered/saved but the value per dollar you see between.
Cutting the cord and getting yourself an android box.
Will some explain to me how to get internet in the country without tieing into frontier,should i get a satilite?
I use to have Frontier Communications. The could never keep billing straight. Not one month was the same. Now since frontier has changed the name to Ziply Fiber. To me it is like a snake that sheds its skin. It might look different and better. But one thing won’t change. It’s still a Snake. same with frontier. You might have a different name and a shiny new look. But you’re still crappy old frontier communications. Of course this is only my opinion.
Frontier provided DSL to rural areas in our Southern Oregon County up until Zipley bought them out. We need to obtain a new service to a home and since Zipley took over during the COVID 19 Pandemic, they have discontinued providing new service (as of JUNE 2020) to areas where the infrastructure is slow at 1 mbps per second upload and less than 1 mbps download. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE and and a DISGRACE to cut off people from service during a pandemic and when service was previously already available. If you need it and the wires go by your property there is no reason why you shouldn’t get it.
How are they reducing the digital divide in the Pacific Northwest especially when they are one of the primary options available to residents????? Where is their accountability to help families and those who are isolated during this pandemic???? The bottom line is they only care about profitability and not doing what is right.
We have had Frontier for years…(only other available was Spc____m.
Could not have been happier.. No interrupts, delays, or slow internet movies, etc.
My message to other customers: “So what”s your problem ? “
Advice re no history or payments at my bank of
America or anywhere. Frontier was taking out over $80 per month for a landline phone service.
My Bank in Sebastopol Sonoma County Ca has no records of Frontier on auto pay. My Landline was cut off “Remotely” by Frontier November 8th for not paying bills. Curious that Frontier cut off my landline without notice by mail or Email? What am I to do re credit status?
frontier has not taken out any money since April 2021
Johanna Lynch