Frontier line thefts cause thousands in losses to Williamson W.Va. business

WILLIAMSON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - Two businesses are reporting losses because Frontier services have been out for days at a time.

Paul Price is the CEO of Precision Heating, Cooling, and Electric. One of his locations is situated on Williamson’s West Side. Along with Appalachian Tire Company across the street, the two businesses say they are experiencing significant losses when calls cannot be accepted.

“All three of our phone lines are out, this is an ongoing problem a total of two and a half weeks since November that our phones have been and it’s critical our customers can’t in touch with us,” said Price.

Those lines are how customers get in touch with Precision Heating, Cooling, and Electric. It is a number known well to Southern West Virginians, 304-235-2000, but employees at their location on Third Ave cannot pick up the phone.

That number and the others for the company are connected to Frontier services. Price said when the internet and phone services began going out in November his losses were so great he decided the company should get internet services with another service in addition to Frontier.

WSAZ reached out to Frontier about the outages.

A spokesperson with Frontier said the area has had at least three outages and those are related to copper thefts of the wire lines.

Frontier said the issue is frustrating for the company because copper thefts are increasing significantly in West Virginia. The spokesperson for Frontier cannot release what the company is doing to combat the issue but she said Frontier is trying to find solutions and the topic is a priority.

Frontier said each time a copper theft happens it is not an easy fix, the maintenance takes longer.

“I really don’t blame the company there has got to be some way this is just going to continue to happen,” said Price.

Appalachian Tire employees said the company is losing money because they are having to turn people away, the card machine does not work, and employees are not receiving any customer calls on their phones.

Frontier has not gotten back to WSAZ about a timeline for the area’s restoration.

For Price’s company which depends on customer calls with no option for another service in the area, the outage in not only frustrating, it means a small business and employer in Williamson are losing thousands of dollars in services.

Price said for a small business that employs a significant number of people in Williamson, having a line of communication is vital.

Click here for more coverage on Frontier services and how copper thefts affect outages and here for more information from frontier about copper thefts.

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