The July 2010 spin-off by Verizon of its local exchange landline businesses in 14 rural states and communities into Frontier Communications has once again become a hot topic.
Back then, the asset transfer included 4.8 million access lines in a deal valued at $8.6 billion. The spin off established Frontier as the nation’s fifth largest local exchange carrier, with 16,000 employees across 27 states.
It included Verizon lines in Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, the Carolinas, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
Ivan Seidenberg was Verizon Chairman and CEO as it sought to focus more resources on wireless and broadband services. According to ABC News, 11,000 employees were transferred from Verizon to Frontier, with CWA leadership signing off on the deal.
Like many other past Verizon spin off partners, Frontier eventually filed for bankruptcy in April 2020, less than 10 years later
At the time, Frontier was $10 billion in debt when it sought bankruptcy protection.
Working to get back on track, Frontier is now rebranding itself and staffing up with at least eight new members of senior corporate leadership, as the company quickly emerged from bankruptcy in April 2021.
In the fourth fiscal quarter of 2021, Frontier added 45,000 fiber broadband customers, outpacing the loss in copper line customers. This was its first customer growth in more than five years.
CEO Nick Jeffery told Yahoo Finance, “The acceleration of our fiber network expansion is clear evidence that Frontier’s transformation is taking hold. Over the past several months, we’ve made real progress in executing our strategy – by adding world-class leadership, introducing a purpose-driven culture, improving the customer experience, and making our operations more efficient and sustainable.”
In February 2022 it announced itself to be the first major Internet Service Provider (ISP) offering 2-Gig network wide Fiber with faster Wi-fi to customers across 25 states.
Frontier began working on a comeback with a fiber optic network plan to connect 600,000 new locations in 2021, and with plans to expand its customer reach to 10 million people by the end of 2025.
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