Frontier just completed a $10.5 billion transaction for Verizon wireline assets which included significant FiOS FTTP assets, but Frontier is equally excited about the future of DSL and IPTV, says Frontier EVP and General Counsel Mark Nielsen. Frontier is a true believer in the long term prospects of wireline based broadband and video.
“That’s our sweet spot as a company,” said Nielsen at Telecompetitor’s broadbandTV event, recently held in Nashville. “Maximizing the operation within those copper territories plays to our core competencies as a company.”
Frontier DSL and IPTV
In addition to maximizing their copper broadband assets, Frontier is embarking on a major IPTV expansion, which recently began in its Durham, NC market. Nielsen highlighted a Frontier strategy that will eventually make video available to over 50% of their footprint, which currently reaches about 30%.
“We’re very excited about our Vantage TV product which utilizes fiber-to-the-node architecture,” said Nielsen.
Frontier is leveraging FTTN, copper broadband to the home, and better encoding schemes to efficiently deliver video, which Nielsen says creates an attractive opportunity.
“The pipe is able to be made bigger and better and then the portion of the pipe that’s necessary to deliver video gets to be less and less,” says Nielsen. “When you put those two things together, it really does begin to demonstrate the opportunity.”
