Customer goes without Frontier landline, internet since Aug. 16

Sep. 8—Terre Haute resident Don Dodson has been without Frontier Communications telephone and internet service since Aug. 16 and he has no idea when his service will be restored.

At least two other neighbors have been affected as well. Dodson lives near Meadows shopping center and he chooses not to have a cell phone.

"Frontier won't send a repair person, claiming that the problem is an outage and that the company will 'communicate' with us once service is restored," Dodson said in an email to the Tribune-Star. "But its customer service department will not explain what the problem is, how many people are affected by it or any estimate of when we may expect service to be restored."

Dodson, meanwhile, goes to the Vigo County Public Library once a day for his email, and on occasion, he's been able to communicate with Frontier customer service with the help of neighbors.

He is a retired business reporter for the Champaign, Illinois, News-Gazette.

Also affected is Debra Israel, who has been without her Frontier landline since Aug. 16.

"I am very frustrated at the lack of communication and updating of why this problem has been taking so long and what the problem is," she said Friday.

Israel called twice "and they haven't told me anything about what the problem is other than that it's a general outage and they're working on it."

Dodson has reached out to Citizens Action Coalition.

According to the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, rates and charges for retail telecommunications services in Indiana were fully deregulated as of July 1, 2009.

"Deregulation of telephone service in Indiana was phased in over a three-year period starting in 2006, when the Indiana General Assembly approved House Enrolled Act 1279 (Public Law 27-2006) declaring that 'competition has become commonplace in the provision of telecommunications services in Indiana and the United States.' The law's approval ended state authority to regulate landline telephone service rates for business and most residential customers."

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has never exercised jurisdiction over rates and charges for wireless/cellular telephone services; internet telephone services; internet service or cable and video services, according to the utility consumer counselor website.

Citizens Action Coalition recommended to Dodson to reach out to the IURC consumer affairs, attorney general's office consumer protection division and state legislators.

In his email, Dodson stated, "It seems amazing to me that Duke Energy could restore power to tens of thousands of customers within a week and a half of the June 29 storm — but Frontier can't restore basic phone service to a much smaller number of customers in Terre Haute after three weeks."

The Tribune-Star has reached out to Frontier Communications' vice president for corporation communications but had not heard back as of Friday afternoon.

Sue Loughlin can be reached at 812-231-4235 or at sue.loughlin@tribstar.com Follow Sue on Twitter @TribStarSue