Kirkland is the final city needed to approve a TV franchise transfer from Verizon to Frontier Communications for cable customers in the state of Washington.
In May, Verizon Communications, Inc. agreed to sell local wireline operations to Frontier Communications in 14 states, including Washington. This would include wireline telephone service, FiOS Internet service and FiOS TV.
Verizon will maintain its wireless telephone services.
Seventeen Washington cities have approved the transfer so far, including Redmond, Snohomish County, Marysville and Kenmore last month. The transfer would allow Frontier to offer its own subscription TV service in Washington using network facilities that it plans to acquire from Verizon.
The City of Kirkland is currently evaluating the request, including Frontier’s willingness and ability to meet the terms that are in the existing franchise.
If the city approves the transfer, Verizon customers in Kirkland would be doing business with Frontier sometime next May.
“There’s a lot of moving parts and regulatory approvals that we have to go through first, so it’s a little hard to say for certain exactly when that (the transaction) happens,” said Steven Crosby, Frontier Communications senior vice president. “We’re looking around probably May or June next year.”
The Frontier-Verizon transaction is also subject to approval by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, utility regulators in five other states and the FCC.
Crosby noted the $8.6 billion purchase will include the acquisition of 4.8 million customers from Verizon, which includes 480,000 from the state of Washington.
Jonathan Davies, a Verizon spokeman, said the company looked at the areas that it serves across the country and “we felt our strengths were serving large urban areas, with a high-density population.
Frontier’s strength is basically operating smaller suburban markets, rural areas and so it seemed to us that it was better for us to concentrate on the areas where we are strong.”
Frontier, which is more than 70 years old and is based in Stanford, Conn., currently operates in 24 states and employs more than 5,500 employees.
Davies assured current Verizon TV customers that they won’t experience a disconnection in services if the transaction goes through.
“From the customer’s point of view, we want to make this as seamless as possible,” he said. “So if they sign up today, they won’t have to worry about their service – it won’t be going away, they won’t have to call another company and figure out who to go with. That’s our main goal is to make this as seamless and as easy as possible for the customer.”
For information about the potential impacts of the merger on the city’s current franchise agreement with Verizon, contact Brenda Cooper, chief information officer for the City of Kirkland, at bcooper@ci.kirkland.wa.us.
