The manager of the Green Marble Coffee shop in Mystic says WiFi service from Frontier Communications has been so iffy that it's probably keeping customers away, and others once burned by technical problems are concerned that they are going to be paying for service that they never received.

These kinds of issues spurred the state Department of Consumer Protection to announce Thursday that it would act as a clearing-house for consumer complaints about Frontier statewide. The Connecticut-based communication company completed a $2 billion deal three weeks ago to take over AT&T's landline, U-verse television and Internet businesses, but has been plagued by complaints over outages, shutoff notices, billing issues, poor reception and missing channels, among other issues.

"Our role is to offer a centralized complaint center for consumers who are unable to reach Frontier or who have not yet found a satisfactory resolution to their problem," said Claudette Carveth, a Consumer Protection Department spokeswoman. "We are working in tandem with other agencies and offices that have already gotten complaints to sort out the issues, and we are also working directly with Frontier to help expedite consumer solutions."

Carveth said her office had received only about 20 complaints as of Thursday, but indicated other agencies were hearing about the issues as well. She said there appeared to be no geographic pattern to the problems.

"Because we saw that the issues seemed to be affecting a large number of consumers, and that consumers were becoming frustrated with not being able to reach Frontier, we decided to make it known that we are available to coordinate complaints with the company," she said in an email.

Greg DiBartolomeo, manager of the Green Marble, counts himself among the frustrated. People at a cafe expect to be able to sit down and get on the Internet, he said, but the Internet had been down completely for the past two days and was working only intermittently otherwise.

"We've been down on and off constantly since we did the switchover," DiBartolomeo said. "It's been really bad."

He said Frontier has been aware of the problem since the beginning, and some of its fixes have improved connectivity for a short period of time, but there's been no long-term resolution.

"It seems like they were left very high and dry by AT&T," DiBartolomeo said.

Shane Dixon of Waterford, an information technology professional who has Frontier's U-verse service, said he has had a series of problems, starting with the loss of AT&T's video-on-demand library and continuing with a cutback on channels, loss of recorded television shows and issues with high-definition capability.

Dixon figures he has spent 25 hours of his time on phone-line troubleshooting. He questioned whether Frontier did its due diligence before acquiring the AT&T businesses.

"It's like they lost the top tier of tech knowhow and had to start from zero," he said.

Dixon acknowledged that Frontier has offered a $50 rebate to U-verse customers but said that wouldn't even cover the first hour of time lost to the maze of conversion problems he faced.

Jerry Fischer, executive director of the New London-based Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut, agreed that the $50 rebate would have to be revisited if Frontier wants to hang onto its customers. Fischer said he lost television service for eight days and had major problems with WiFi service as well.

"You're going to have to pay for that," Fisher said of Frontier. "Give me a free month or I'm going to have to leave you."

The Consumer Protection Department said customers with unresolved problems should still turn to Frontier first. The company has added to its customer support staff, according to the agency.

"If it is determined that investigations are warranted, the appropriate agencies will address them once the customer issues are resolved," Carveth said.

The agency said consumers are encouraged to file written complaints with the state. The complaint form is available at http://1.usa.gov/1yDBwfi.

Email complaints also are being accepted at dcp.frauds@ct.gov. Consumers should include their email, address, telephone number, billing address and information about their problems.

"We want to ensure that all customers are protected and adequately receiving the services for which they are paying," Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said in a statement.

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow