Given the history of prior Verizon rural line divestitures, Frontier probably figures its best to keep everyone updated on the largest of these transactions. Frontier took over Verizon rural territories in 14 states on July 1st. They issued a brief progress report this morning.
“Systems conversion and customer billing are on schedule,” says Frontier in a press release. The majority of the conversion, in 13 of the 14 states, is being handled by a ‘stand-alone’ system carved out of Verizon’s existing infrastructure. West Virginia is the one state where a hard cut over to Frontier’s systems occurred. As suspected, West Virginia has seen its share of issues relative to this cut over.
Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter commented that “All of our employees, and especially those in West Virginia, are going beyond the call of duty to help us execute this short-term conversion so that we can focus 100 percent on expanding broadband. This is especially true in West Virginia, which ranks 47th in the nation for broadband availability. Its citizens deserve better and will get it from Frontier.”Thirteen states involved in the transaction are supported by a stand-alone system carved out from Verizon. The only state requiring conversion to Frontier systems at closing was West Virginia, where Frontier is now the largest provider of communications services.”
There have been some minor hiccups with Frontier FiOS TV service, where Frontier discontinued some features previously offered by Verizon. Given the complexity of this transaction, Frontier has to be pleased so far – although I’m sure there’s a lot of finger crossing going on at Frontier HQ.
