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February 24, 2015

Frontier Tells Its Wi-Fi, Fiber Story

Frontier Communications was at ITEXPO Miami last month talking about what it’s doing to bring higher speed broadband and Wi-Fi to its customers. Dennis Bloss, vice president and general manager at Frontier, spoke with me on camera to provide the details.

Wi-Fi is a growing part of Frontier’s enterprise segment, said Bloss, noting the company recently completed a large build in this vein for American Tobacco Historic District and the Durham Bulls baseball stadium in Durham, N.C. ADTRAN provided the access point gear and engineering resources for the installation. The 16-acre deployments can support 11,000 simultaneous users. The Frontier managed Wi-Fi service feeds traffic to a 1gbps pipe into Frontier’s core network.

Speaking of 1gbps connections, Bloss said the company in the last five years since acquiring Verizon properties has been moving to an IP backbone. It’s also invested heavily in fiber-to-the-curb technology for residential users and small businesses, doing the last mile on copper. That, Bloss added, positions Frontier well to now take the next step and bring fiber all the way to homes. Considering there are driveways and sidewalks to contend with in these builds, it won’t be easy, he said, but the good news is the core is already in place and the company is already able to deliver 40- to 50mbps on copper and it’s offering gigabit services in such cities as Beaverton, Ore., and Durham.

"Frontier has invested more than $80 million to upgrade and enhance our North Carolina network over the last few years. Our newest upgrade to our fiber network offers speeds up to 50 times faster than cable to business and residential customers in Durham," Chairman and CEO Maggie Wilderotter recently said. "Frontier's vast fiber network already plays a critical role in this community, offering speeds up to 25mbps to more than 70 percent of households we serve in Durham. We are leveraging that robust network to offer blazing fast speeds up to 1gig."




Edited by Maurice Nagle


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