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A Tale of Two Territories: Frontier Plans Upgrades for Newly Ex-Verizon/AT&T Customers While Legacy Areas Suffer

Phillip Dampier May 28, 2015 Broadband Speed, Competition, Consumer News, Frontier, Rural Broadband 11 Comments

frontier-fast-buffalo-large-2The new CEO of Frontier Communications is promising more fiber to the home service and advanced ADSL2+ and VDSL2 service to dramatically boost Internet speeds… if you happen to live in a Verizon territory Frontier is planning to acquire in Texas, California, or Florida. For Connecticut customers that used to belong to AT&T, Frontier also plans to spend money to further build out AT&T’s U-verse platform to reach more suburban customers not deemed profitable enough to service by AT&T.

For legacy Frontier customers in other states? Frontier plans nothing beyond what it already provides — usually dismally slow DSL.

Speaking to investors during the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, Frontier CEO Daniel McCarthy said upgrades offer the company new earnings opportunities, but a closer analysis reveals those benefits will only reach customers in areas where Verizon and AT&T already did most of the work and spent the money required to build advanced network infrastructure.

Verizon has spent millions upgrading customers in Texas to its FiOS service and has a significant fiber to the home presence in California and Florida. Because fiber infrastructure is already largely in place, Frontier will not have to spend huge sums to build a new network. Instead, it will spend incrementally to expand service to nearby service areas.

Mediocre broadband in upstate New York.

Mediocre broadband in upstate New York.

“The FiOS penetration is much higher, specifically in Texas, but we think there’s a lot of opportunity to drive FiOS penetration in Florida and California,” McCarthy said. “We see that as a big opportunity.”

Fierce Telecom notes Frontier won’t have to make a large investment outside of installing new DSLAMs in remote terminals or local Central Offices to deliver higher speeds over copper. Frontier will likely depend on VDSL2 technology on short copper line lengths in suburban areas and ADSL2+ in rural locations.

“I think in this case it might be replacing some electronics, but it’s not a heavy lift from a construction perspective,” McCarthy said. “By putting in a shelf and next-generation capabilities, whether it’s VDSL, ADSL2+, or all the different flavors you can use to serve the different loop lengths in a market you achieve the ability to bring a fresh product set into an area at a fairly low cost.”

While Frontier is willing to invest money in areas that are easy to upgrade, it has proven itself reluctant to consider major upgrades in its legacy service areas where it acquired traditional copper-based landline networks.

“The new states will clearly have new growth opportunities,” McCarthy said. “In Florida there has been a revival of housing in certain areas and subdivision growth in Texas and California.”

In Connecticut, Frontier will build on the acquired AT&T fiber/copper network with a modest expansion of U-verse.

frontier u-verse“We actually see growth opportunity in Connecticut,” McCarthy said. “As we go through and look at the Connecticut property, one of the things that have been a recent development from a technology perspective allows us to serve lower density parts of the state of Connecticut with U-verse product that was limited by densities and loop lengths in the past.”

Although the company often touts millions in upgrade investments, most legacy service areas see only modest service improvements, while the company continues to score very poor in customer satisfaction, especially in states like West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. With Frontier’s ongoing focus on newly acquired service areas, long-standing customers in other states are feeling neglected.

In upstate New York, the prevalence of Frontier Communications’ low speed DSL on the company’s legacy copper network has dragged down overall broadband speed ratings to some of the lowest in the country. Frontier territory Rochester, N.Y., in particular, is now among the worst cities in the northeast for overall broadband speed performance, now rated at just 21.42Mbps. The national average is 36.22Mbps. In comparison, Buffalo scores 24.31Mbps, Cleveland: 22.57Mbps, and NYC 55.56Mbps.

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Dancer
Dancer
8 years ago

Frontier shall begin their rapid GPON FiOS expansion on all territories serviced by Verizon before because Verizon loves to reduce Fiber opportunities by beginning their reduction plan by selling off fiber optic networks to frontier for no single reason. Please begin phasing out copper lines and start rapidly boosting comittment to Frontier 2Fast standard and begin expansion of Fiber to the home service over the long term. Please rebuild reputation with FiOS and start expanding FiOS 2Fast quickly with new download speeds up to 5 Gbps. While Verizon only believes in reducing fiber optic service in some markets and soon… Read more »

TheDreamer
TheDreamer
8 years ago
Reply to  Dancer

Hahaha in your dreams!

Joe V
Joe V
8 years ago

You know Phil I have AT&T really slow DSL here in California. I’m supposed to get 6megs-in reality its 4.8 or slower depending on time of day-plus a 150 gigabyte monthly cap and overage charges for ever 50 gigs I go over. My internet bill on average is $71.00 a month. With the rise of cord cutting thanks to streaming TV options such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO NOW and sling TV, what AT&T and many other ISPS are doing by imposing data caps is outright extortion. They know that. Consumers are angry and the complaints against these companies to the… Read more »

Joe V
Joe V
8 years ago

Yes, last bill I paid a few days ago was $71.00-for a 6-meg connection which truthfully is 4.8-megs. I have contacted Sonic.net, DSL Extreme, Earthlink, Frontier, all of these companies trying to bring attention to this area. I live in Pacifica California. Even though this city is 7.1 miles from downtown San Francisco, as Dan Jasper the CEO of Sonic explained to me : “Thanks for your interest. I can certainly hear your frustration, and I understand the situation very well. Sonic today offers service using ADSL2+ and VDSL2 technology, (as well as limited pilot Fiber-to-the-home deployments.) But copper using… Read more »

Joe V
Joe V
8 years ago

Believe me Phil, I have looked. I went on Earthlink’s webpage and they best they can offer is either dial up or satellite. I have contacted DSL Extreme and they don’t service my area. And sonic.net, they are a bay area company and look at the CEO’s response above, even he won’t serve this area. The neighborhood I live in, I have counted 8 AT&T cabinets about 1 block from each other. Some are labeled U-Verse. Supposedly, AT&T U-Verse is here. Guess what? According to AT&T, I am too far to get it. I live 2 blocks from the closest… Read more »

BobInIllinois
BobInIllinois
8 years ago

PC Magazine recently released its Readers’ Choice Awards on ISP’s for 2015.

Frontier Fiber was near the top, after RCN, Verizon FiOS, WOW!, & Cable One.

Frontier DSL was at the very bottom of the list. Just above Frontier was Verizon DSL, AT&T DSL, & Windstream DSL.

Here’s the link to page 2, with the rankings:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2c2817%2c2484348%2c00.asp

Paul Houle
Paul Houle
8 years ago

It’s a mess.

Fox News viewers show up on forums and will drone on that we can’t afford FTTH, but the problem here is that if Frontier can charge me $135 for two phone lines and two 1.2 Mbps DSL connections, they have no incentive to upgrade.

DSL is an economic weapon of mass destruction against rural America and it needs to go.

dancer
dancer
8 years ago
Reply to  Paul Houle

I’m thinking about building a next generation broadband network across Canada and United States over next couple of years based on Fibre To the Home network, not a mixture of slower and oldest broadband services like At&T used for the decades. I plan on entering Fibre to the home business for Internet business by end of this year and I chossed to upgrade every internet network everywhere as verizon plans on selling off their Fibre optics to Frontier for no apparent reason because they have OCPD and Frontier continued to reduce internet speed for fiber optic customers. I’m starting a… Read more »

Bad internet
Bad internet
7 years ago

I can see the fiber form my house and I am right on the line of at@t and Verizon and I still cannot get it my Internet goes 100 kB a second on a good day

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