Frontier Communications’ Rural Wide Web
Delivering telecom services to remote locations has sparked company growth.
Courtesy Frontier Communications
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E-mailCompany: Frontier Communications, a Stamford, Conn.-based provider of telecommunications services to mostly rural communities in 27 states
Market Cap: $8.2 billion*
Broadband is to the 2010s what electricity was to the 1930s: an economic near-necessity whose expansion to underserved nonurban areas has become a national priority.
Spearheading that effort is Frontier Communications Corp. (FTR), America’s largest rural-telecom provider — a status it cemented in July 2010, when it acquired Verizon Communications Inc.’s (VZ) local wireline operations in 14 states. According to the company, the move added nearly 5 million access lines to its portfolio — as well as 10,000 new employees, who tripled Frontier’s size virtually overnight.
“We purchased these properties from Verizon because they were fixer-uppers,” says Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter. “They had not been invested in for a long time, and we felt we could reduce costs through our ability to scale.” The company says it now administers some 7 million access lines across 27 states.
Wilderotter insists that every American, regardless of location, deserves to sample from the same telecommunications menu. To make high-speed telecom more widely available, she says, Frontier aims to reach 85 percent broadband penetration in its service areas within two years — up, in some cases, from 30 percent today.
Frontier’s personal touch has helped engender customer loyalty, Wilderotter notes. Before the Verizon deal, the CEO recalls, she hired general managers in localities across the country to run the new business at ground level. As she has learned, expansion of telecom access often spurs an impassioned reaction.
“In a lot of these neighborhoods, people are very emotional about it,” Wilderotter says. “They want it.”
*Market cap as of April 1, 2011
