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Frontier Communications, the telephone and broadband provider in Rochester, New York, is now positioned for consolidation, according to StreetInsider.com, a financial news and investor information site.
Frontier has completed several mergers and acquisitions in the past year, as part of the ongoing consolidation in the telecommunications provider sector. Frontier’s value as a takeover target has been increasing, as the company reduces its debt and has received stable ratings from independent rating companies. A Piper Jaffrey analyst said the company remained open to both buying and selling assets.
The background buzz continues to focus on some sort of deal between Windstream Corporation and Frontier. Analysts spoke last year of Frontier being the likely target of Windstream for a buyout, but the economy then took a nosedive.
Windstream is another independent telephone company comprised of the old Alltel telephone company and ValorTelecom.
That the financial press has taken a renewed interest in both stocks may signal a play in the coming weeks or months.
Now is the time Verizon! Buy out Frontier and bring us FiOS!
Exactly. We don’t want no Windstream…we want Verizon. Now.
Please Verizon. Please please please!!!
Would get FiOS in a heart beat if available in Rochester!
Maybe Verizon will purchase them. Maybe we would finally see FIOS available in Rochester.
I pray for Verizon.
We don’t want any takeover – we want real competition. Verizon should compete with Frontier… not buy it out!!! The more options available, the better the product that is passed on to us.
We want a takeover. Inititally, Verizon will have to get some sort of DSL and phone service up and running. They would have to use Frontier’s existing infrastructure at first in order to do this. And running fiber all around the Rochester metro area will cost them $$$ millions to do and this will take time.
And then they’ll be a phone monopoly, like Frontier is now. And the lack of competition will keep prices high. We should not be decreasing the number of companies that provide services, we should be increasing this number. Personally, I think Verizon is almost as bad as Time Warner. Sure, they haven’t started capping for anything, but they’re just as big and they’re doing too much. I dislike them very much as my cell phone provider, and once my contract is up, I am gone. I don’t want to be in a place where I would have to get my… Read more »
Frontier is not a phone monopoly. I am willing to bet that the Time Warner telephone is doing quite nicely as far as the number of subscribers. I do not think that if Verizon came to town that they would be the only game in town. I think that the stronger competition would force Time Warner to upgrade the services that they currently are offering. Remember, there were no caps proposed anywhere where there is strong competition for Time Warner. I would welcome FIOS and I would be quite interested in seeing what Verizon would offer in terms of TV… Read more »
I would be fine with them coming, but not at the expense of Frontier. Replacing one company with another isn’t an actual increase in competition, it’s just swapping one out for another. Frontier could die out on its own if they weren’t able to compete, but I don’t like buyouts. They reek of consolidation.
So here is the real deal. Verizon needs a system to deliver phone service, internet and TV or whatever to greater Rochester…heck, any community … so of course, they are going to want to utilize the delivery system that is in place and this includes thousands and thousands of poles that are owned either by an existing phone company or power company ( ie: RG&E ). The existing copper network is already in place and Verizon is not going to want to just use fiber. They are going to have to use the copper lines also because I do believe… Read more »
From my understanding, the reason we’re in this mess with one provider for cable, one provider for “traditional” phone, etc. is because the government originally granted them monopolies in return for laying down the infrastructure. I just don’t think we should allow the process to repeat itself. I’m assuming that other cities that have good competition also have redundancy in infrastructure. Why shouldn’t we aim for this as our goal?