A new broadband provider, Ziply Fiber, will begin operations in the Northwest states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana this Spring.
Ziply was born from Frontier’s Northwest operations when WaveDivision Capital bought those operations from Frontier for $1.3 billion last year. The Frontier transaction is expected to close April 1.
Ziply will be a significant broadband player, with close to 300K broadband subscribers, 270K residential and 25K commercial, on day 1. According to the company, 31% of its homes passed are fiber capable. Ziply aims to get that number to 80% over the next few years and has committed $100 million towards network upgrades.
Ziply Fiber
Ziply Fiber will offer residential triple play services, as well as business and wholesale connectivity. According to the Ziply website, Ziply pricing will match current Frontier pricing, at least for the time being. Ziply is emphasizing no disruption in service for the cutover, an issue of heightened concern in a COVID-19 environment.
Washington state will be Ziply’s largest market, with close to 960K passings. Montana is its smallest, with 11K passings. Total passings across all markets are 1.6 million. The company plans to have 1,200 employees, 980 of which will come from Frontier.
Ziply will be led by Harold Zeitz, the former president and COO of Wave Broadband. Steve Weed, founder of Wave Broadband, will serve as Ziply’s chairman. Ziply’s parent company, WaveDivision Capital, has significant investments in other broadband properties across the country, including RCN/Grande and Hargray. Ziply Fiber will be based in Kirkland, Washington.
There are rumors that when this change over is complete that Ziply will discontinue TV service. Is this true? Should we look for a different provider for our TV service now?
Well even a few years ago Frontier was telling its TV cable customers that Frontier wanted to get out of the cable TV business and they were even willing to cancel (multi-)year subscriber contracts to allow customers to switch to DISH. We did that and haven't regretted it thus far. I have no idea what Ziply's plans are.
Sometimes when a new company buys/takes over from an existing company, the fear is that the new company and the service they provide will be just as bad or worse than the one before it. I recall experts saying Frontier is incapable of handling the internet proviso. Yes, Frontier failed miserably as predicted. The jury will be out on this new company Ziply, but do not hold your breath on improvement. In this day and age, it is always a slide downhill, instead of great and innovative strides forward. Call me jaded if you will, but look around you and see if any industry has provided you with quality over products from 50 to 60 years ago.
The Internet service will improve… we are already building the new backbone and have started using it to provide capacity to FTR in a number of locations, lots of money is getting put into making it better!
FTR?
Will we have to change e mail address?
I just went to this site: https://frontier.com/ziplyfiber-residential
Lots of FAQs there. The quick answer is no.
I have been a satellite user for tv and broadband for 14 years. Locked in because Frontier fiber is 1/4 mile on a major road with no intentions of extending it to me. I am on my 4th broadband satellite provider.
TV has remained steady with Directtv, but programming has changed so that there is limited coverage in the smaller packages.
what do I think? First, Ziply is out of Kirkland, WA? Nice for the COO, CEO, etc. – surrounded by some of the priciest real estate in the Northwest! As for our services: Frontier has provided possibly the worst customer service of any tech provider Iʻve done or do business with. About a dozen times over the past 10 years Iʻve been on the phone with them for an hour or more without success and promised a call back which has NEVER come . NEVER. Still waiting for a new modem promised 8 months ago.. Perhaps, just perhaps Ziply (who thought up THAT dumb sounding name? Doesnʻt bode well) can fix the problems Frontier never did.
I have been dealing with DSL from Frontier and they can't even do that well. They never invested in any infrastructure within the Northwest community, particularly Whidbey Island. This despite the growing population and growth on Whidbey within the last 5 years. We live where there are 21 lots, and when we first moved into our home in 2007, there were only 5 developed houses. Now there are 12 out of 21 lots developed and no internet improvement in sight. My internet has been down more than it's up. I hope Ziply plans on investing in the community, because Frontier left it a mess. There are folks in Coupeville talking of forming our own Utility company to provide our own internet and broadband service, that's how bad it's been. Ziply has a mountain to climb to earn the trust of the community here on Whidbey to be sure. This is one Frontier customer that is celebrating their departure.
Frontier is THE WORST company I have ever had the displeasure to deal with!!! Customer service was terrible, disinterested and mostly worthless. Hook up service was terrible too, I had to supply my own 600 feet of phone cable. The bill was never what I was quoted and customer service was slow to answer and even slower to correct – as in never. I am amazed that such a poorly run company with poorly trained staff can even exist. Good riddance!
What can a residential customer expect for monthly service charges?
For now, they’re honoring Frontier prices. That makes sense, because we’ll have to continue to deal with Frontier connectivity until our areas get switched over. A local post said that Ziply was left with “a nightmare of patchwork fixes” in our rural area, and it wasn’t going to be a “light switch change”.
I can’t wait…I feel like I’ve been held hostage for 12 years!
I was a Frontier customer for many years. They were time consuming and painful to deal with. I have to say the new Ziply service has exceeded any hopeful expectations I had. Their phone customer service was prompt and most helpful. They took care of the issue immediately and my internet service now is beyond what I could have hoped for. I am already a fan! I highly recommend their services.
Ziply Fiber is a Wave Broadband company. My friends who have wave internet have nothing good to say about the wave service. It is frequently out and the customer service is terrible. My hopes for an improvement on Frontier's service is not good. Their phone tree is certainly just as bad as the Frontier phone tree.
Good service so far. Just upgraded from 150/150 to 1000/1000 and it is working great. Had a glitch on the prevision request but they fixed it quickly. Gave me introductory pricing even though I am an existing customer. Pretty sweet so far. No outages to speak of either.
Ziply needs to get some of their employees more customer orientated. There seems to be a lack of customer communications about service requirements. When you tell a customer you will be there on a certain day and time, BE THERE. Don’t just not show up or call and tell them you aren’t coming. CUSTOMER SERVICE IS IMPORTANT!
I always wondered what it was like to live in the past, and now I can thanks to Ziply!
After renting a property with ‘ziply Fiber’ I now get a solid unreliable 50kbps provided via a phone line ziply will not upgrade and Comcast claims they aren’t allowed to work on due to Ziply.
Atleast I get to break out the old snes instead of anything resembling online gaming.
Work just loved the fact that I can’t hardly email from home let alone work or school from home.