Frontier troubles impact Sarasota customers

On April 1, the day Verizon FiOS transferred its local cable, Internet and landline phone operations to Frontier Communications, Longboat Key resident Tom Mayers was one of many Sarasota-area customers left without service.

Frontier, which assumed control of Verizon operations in California, Texas and Florida, acknowledged those service issues, which also impacted several Sarasota businesses Friday evening. The company has said the problems were largely addressed the day of the transition, but customers extending from Sarasota to Tampa are still reporting some problems.

For Mayers, it took three days without landline service before his phone was working properly again.

“After a day with no service, I tried to contact them,” Mayers said. “I got no response other than that they were working on it.” 

Although Frontier has addressed the rocky transition, the company has also suggested some of the issues residents are raising aren’t attributable to the switch from Verizon. When Mayers’ service was restored Monday, a Frontier employee said a lightning strike caused the outage.

That’s not to say that the company believes it’s operating at full strength in the region. Frontier said the specific issue impacting Internet service at Sarasota businesses was addressed around midnight Friday, but spokesman Bob Elek encouraged customers still experiencing problems to reach out to customer service to troubleshoot any ongoing issues.

With millions of subscribers undergoing the switch nationwide, Frontier is asking customers to remain patient as any lingering problems are discovered and addressed.

“While every day brings service issues in this business, it's too soon to say we are ‘normal,’” Elek wrote in an email to the Longboat Observer. “We aren't seeing anything widespread, but we are still transitioning, so there could still be issues we cannot see at the moment.”