Summary Of Significant Accounting Policies (Policy)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2017

Summary Of Significant Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Basis of Presentation and Use of Estimates

(a) Basis of Presentation and Use of Estimates:

Frontier Communications Corporation and its subsidiaries are referred to as “we,” “us,” “our,” “Frontier,” or the “Company” in this report. Our interim unaudited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (GAAP) and should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016. Certain reclassifications of amounts previously reported have been made to conform to the current presentation, as described in Note 2 – Recent Accounting Literature. All significant intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. These interim unaudited consolidated financial statements include all adjustments (consisting of normal recurring accruals) considered necessary, in the opinion of Frontier’s management, to present fairly the results for the interim periods shown. Revenues, net loss and cash flows for any interim periods are not necessarily indicative of results that may be expected for the full year. For our interim financial statements as of and for the period ended March 31, 2017, we evaluated subsequent events and transactions for potential recognition or disclosure through the date that we filed this Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Effective April 1, 2016, Frontier’s scope of operations and balance sheet changed materially as a result of the completion of the CTF Acquisition, as described in Note 3 – Acquisitions. Historical financial data presented for Frontier is not indicative of the future financial position or operating results for Frontier, and includes the results of the CTF Operations, as defined in Note 3 – Acquisitions, from the date of acquisition on April 1, 2016.

The preparation of our interim financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect (i) the reported amounts of assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, (ii) the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities, and (iii) the reported amounts of revenue and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results may differ from those estimates. Estimates and judgments are used when accounting for the allowance for doubtful accounts, asset impairments, indefinite-lived intangibles, depreciation and amortization, income taxes, business combinations, and pension and other postretirement benefits, among others.

We operate in one reportable segment. Frontier provides both regulated and unregulated voice, data and video services to residential, business and wholesale customers and is typically the incumbent voice services provider in its service areas.

Revenue Recognition

(b) Revenue Recognition:

Revenue is recognized when services are provided or when products are delivered to customers. Revenue that is billed in advance includes monthly recurring network access services (including data services), special access services and monthly recurring voice, video and related charges. The unearned portion of these fees is initially deferred as a component of “Advanced billings” on our consolidated balance sheet and recognized as revenue over the period that the services are provided. Revenue that is billed in arrears includes non-recurring network access services (including data services), switched access services and non-recurring voice and video services. The earned but unbilled portion of these fees is recognized as revenue in our consolidated statements of operations and accrued in “Accounts receivable” on our consolidated balance sheet in the period that the services are provided. Excise taxes are recognized as a liability when billed. Installation fees and their related direct and incremental costs are initially deferred and recognized as revenue and expense over the average term of a customer relationship. We recognize as current period expense the portion of installation costs that exceeds installation fee revenue.

Frontier collects various taxes from its customers and subsequently remits these taxes to governmental authorities. Substantially all of these taxes are recorded through the consolidated balance sheet and presented on a net basis in our consolidated statements of operations. We also collect Universal Service Fund (USF) surcharges from customers (primarily federal USF) that we have recorded on a gross basis in our consolidated statements of operations and included within “Revenue” and “Network related expenses” of $53 million and $39 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

In 2015, we accepted the FCC’s Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II offer of support, which is a successor to and augments the USF frozen high cost support that we had been receiving pursuant to a 2011 FCC order. Upon completion of the CTF Acquisition, Frontier assumed the CAF Phase II support and related obligations that Verizon had previously accepted with regard to California and Texas. CAF Phase II funding is a program intended to subsidize the high cost of establishing and delivering communications services to certain unserved or underserved areas. We are recognizing these subsidies into revenue on a straight line basis, which is consistent with how the costs related to these subsidies are being and are expected to be incurred. CAF Phase II is a multi-year program which requires us to deploy broadband to a specified number of households in each of the states where funding was accepted. Failure to meet our deployment obligations at the end of the program in 2020 will result in a return of a portion of the funding received. We regularly evaluate our ability to meet our broadband deployment obligations and adjust revenue accordingly.

We categorize our products, services and other revenues among the following five categories:

Data and Internet services include broadband services for residential and business customers. We provide data transmission services to high volume business customers and other carriers with dedicated high capacity circuits (“nonswitched access”) including services to wireless providers (“wireless backhaul”);

Voice services include traditional local and long distance wireline services, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, as well as a number of unified messaging services offered to our residential and business customers. Voice services also include the long distance voice origination and termination services that we provide to our business customers and other carriers;

Video services include revenues generated from services provided directly to residential customers through the FiOS® and Vantage video brands, and through DISH® satellite TV services;

Other customer revenue includes sales of customer premise equipment to our business customers and directory services, less our provision for bad debts; and

Switched Access and Subsidy revenues include revenues derived from allowing other carriers to use our network to originate and/or terminate their local and long distance voice traffic (“switched access”). These services are primarily billed on a minutes-of-use basis applying tariffed rates filed with the FCC or state agencies. We also receive cost subsidies from state and federal authorities, including the Connect America Fund Phase II.

The following table provides a summary of revenues from external customers by the categories of Frontier’s products and services:



	For the three months ended
	March 31,

($ in millions)	2017		2016

Data and Internet services	$	993	$	587
Voice services		751		467
Video services		347		67
Other		68		68
Customer revenue		2,159		1,189
Switched access and subsidy		197		166
Total revenue	$	2,356	$	1,355

Goodwill and Other Intangibles

Goodwill represents the excess of purchase price over the fair value of identifiable tangible and intangible net assets acquired. We have undertaken studies to determine the fair values of assets and liabilities acquired as well as to allocate the purchase price to assets and liabilities, including property, plant and equipment, goodwill and other identifiable intangibles. We examine the carrying value of our goodwill and trade name annually as of December 31, or more frequently, as circumstances warrant, to determine whether there are any impairment losses. We test for goodwill impairment at the “operating segment” level, as that term is defined in GAAP.

We determined that we have one operating segment based on a number of factors that our management uses to evaluate and run our business operations, including similarities of customers, products and technology. We tested goodwill for impairment as of March 31, 2017 as a result of a) the changes in organizational structure and the corresponding changes in management reporting to the chief operating decision makers during the first quarter of 2017 and b) the decline in share price of our common stock from December 31, 2016. There was no indication of impairment as a result of our testing. Significant changes in the assumptions or estimates used in our impairment analyses, such as a reduction in profitability and/or cash flows, could result in a non-cash goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible asset impairment charge and materially affect our operating results. If the assumptions for either of our EBITDA (defined as operating income, net of acquisition and integration costs, non-cash pension and OPEB costs, pension settlement costs, and restructuring costs and other charges, plus depreciation and amortization) or EBITDA multiple were to decrease by 10% there would be an indication of impairment. Further declines in our stock price could also indicate impairment.

Frontier amortizes finite-lived intangible assets over their estimated useful lives on the accelerated method of sum of the years digits. We review such intangible assets at least annually as of December 31 to assess whether any potential impairment exists and whether factors exist that would necessitate a change in useful life and a different amortization period.