By David Shepardson<\/p>\n
Jan 15 (Reuters) – The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved Verizon Communications’ $20 billion deal to acquire fiber-optic internet providers Frontier Communications , clearing the way for \u200bthe deal to close on Tuesday after Verizon agreed to a series of conditions.<\/p>\n
California \u200cstate regulators said Verizon committed to investing in 75,000 new fiber locations and building 25 new wireless towers to expand \u200cservice in rural areas in the state. The company also agreed to additional broadband\u2011deployment requirements and to provide free broadband service to many low\u2011income households in the state for at least 10 years. The approval was the final needed for the deal to close.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe path to closing the Frontier acquisition marks \u2060a significant milestone in Verizon’s \u200cevolution and is a bold step forward in Verizon’s transformation to regain market leadership,\u201d said Verizon CEO Dan Schulman.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon closing, we will be uniquely positioned to \u200doffer our customers the best combined mobility and fiber experience for mobile, home internet, and other essential services across a significantly expanded footprint,” Schulman said.<\/p>\n
Verizon will also increase its commitments to tribal communities under the agreement, \u200bthe commission said.<\/p>\n
Verizon won approval from the Federal Communications Commission in May after the company agreed \u200cto end its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which raised concerns from California. Shortly after taking office on January 20, Trump — who designated Brendan Carr as chair — issued sweeping executive orders to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the U.S. and pressured the private sector to join the initiative.<\/p>\n
Verizon agreed to buy Frontier in September 2024 for about $9.6 billion and absorb $10 billion in Frontier debt. \u2060Verizon expects to upgrade and expand Frontier\u2019s existing network \u200bin 25 states and deploy fiber to 1 million or \u200bmore American homes annually, the FCC said.<\/p>\n
In February, Carr said he was opening a probe of Verizon for its promotion of DEI programs and said it could \u200dbe a factor in \u2060the Frontier deal. Verizon said in May it was getting rid of its DEI website and removing references to DEI from employee training and making other changes to hiring, career \u2060development, supplier diversity and corporate sponsorship practices.<\/p>\n
CPUC said the settlement would further its public policy goals of diverse supply \u200cchains and workforces, including a $10 million partnership with the California State University system.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200cDavid Shepardson in Washington; editing by Diane Craft)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By David Shepardson Jan 15 (Reuters) – The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved Verizon Communications’ $20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[17105,28,119864,13798,196825,83399,78301],"class_list":["post-409964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-brendan-carr","tag-business","tag-dan-schulman","tag-federal-communications-commission","tag-frontier-acquisition","tag-frontier-communications","tag-verizon-communications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}