{"id":36425,"date":"2025-08-01T02:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T02:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/36425\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T02:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T02:41:11","slug":"arizona-settlement-aims-to-improve-rural-broadband-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/36425\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona settlement aims to improve rural broadband – Arizona"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2014 Attorney General Kris Mayes announced<\/a> on Wednesday that Arizona reached a settlement with two major communication companies to bring reliable internet and phone service to Navajo and Apache counties.<\/p>\n

As part of the agreement, Frontier Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. will invest $8 million to increase and strengthen broadband in these Native American counties.<\/p>\n

Mayes said residents have experienced \u201cunreliable internet and phone service that has jeopardized public safety, hurt local businesses, and put lives at risk during emergencies\u201d for far too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese settlements will hold Frontier and Verizon accountable to the communities they serve, bring major investments in broadband infrastructure, and represent a big step in ensuring that residents in these rural areas receive the high-quality service they deserve,\u201d the attorney general stated.<\/p>\n

Nearly $4 million will be spent on connecting homes, businesses and public institutions to high-speed fiber.<\/p>\n

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Also, more than $2 million will be spent by these companies to improve fiber network reliability between Holbrook, Snowflake and Show Low. Furthermore, over $2 million will be spent to fortify connections between St. Johns, Concho, Springerville, Vernon and Show Low.<\/p>\n

All these financial commitments are enforceable through a consent judgment by the Arizona attorney general.<\/p>\n

In the agreement, Verizon, which is in the process of acquiring<\/a> Frontier for $20 billion, is responsible for identifying and fixing the causes of public safety and 911 outages in these counties. Additionally, the company will need to complete a full network audit, fund investments to make sure customers have reliable service and enact upgraded maintenance practices.<\/p>\n

As part of the agreement, customers in these counties who have Frontier will not see a rate increase until 2027. Low-income service plans will be offered to customers in these counties.<\/p>\n

The Arizona Attorney General\u2019s Office will have party status to make Verizon comply with its obligations through the Arizona Corporation Commission<\/a>, which is a state regulatory agency that oversees public utilities.<\/p>\n

The commission still needs to approve this settlement.<\/p>\n

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Mayes warned if Verizon or Frontier \u201cfail to live up to these commitments,\u201d she will \u201cnot hesitate to go to court to compel compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2014 Attorney General Kris Mayes announced on Wednesday that Arizona reached a settlement with two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64,63,237,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-36425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}