Citizens Communications is no more.

Citizens Communications is no more.   The parent company of Frontier Communications is dropping their old name and will just call themselves Frontier Communications going forward.

“By aligning our corporate name with the brand name used throughout our markets, we will increase the visibility of our company with shareholders, leverage the strength of the Frontier brand, and make the financial community more aware of our accomplishments in the communities we share,” said Maggie Wilderotter, chairwoman and CEO.

“Using the name Frontier Communications is appropriate for our company since 100 percent of our customer interactions involve that name,” she said.

The new identity of Frontier Communications, already familiar in areas like Rochester, N.Y., will now also appear in former Citizens territory.

Frontier Communications began when Rochester Telephone Corporation of Rochester, N.Y.  sought to disassociate itself with the identity of just being a telephone company, and rebranded itself as “Frontier Communications” to help market its data and experimental video products, as well as dropping the localism implied by Rochester – the company owned small independent telephone companies in several states around the country.

Frontier’s name  was  kept when the company  was acquired by Global Crossing, Ltd., Hamilton,  Bermuda. Global Crossing, Ltd., now a shadow of its former self after declaring bankruptcy in 2002, sold Frontier to Citizens Communications, which has run the company since.

Frontier’s identify online has been around since the earliest days the company got into the Internet Service Provider business, as Frontiernet.net.   Dial-up service continues under that name, but the company’s high speed DSL business operates  as Frontier High Speed Internet.