Frontier: 'No Market Demand' for Gigabit Service It has been several months since Frontier Communications utterly flubbed its acquisition of ex-Verizon customers in California, Texas and Florida, and the company continues to try and restore its reputation among customers that didn't get a very good first impression. Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, Frontier's Bob Elek notes that things have improved dramatically, while also claiming that outsourced support representatives were a big reason for the company's face plant earlier this year.

"Largely, that was due to an offshore call center in the Philippines, which we have acknowledged was not the right decision," said Elek. "That offshore center caused a great deal of trouble. About a month or so ago, we on-shored all of that service. Frontier's goal was to have a 100 percent U.S. work force, and that's exactly what we have now." According to Frontier, they're now fulfilling 97% of new customer orders, a dramatic improvement from the 60% or so fulfilment rate customers were experiencing during the transition. Frontier's now focused on improving customer service and deploying selective broadband speed upgrades, though Elek was quick to indicate that gigabit speeds likely won't be among them (for the majority of customers) anytime soon. "Is there market demand for it? I don't think there has been thus far," said the spokesman. Granted like so many telcos, Frontier customers are often lucky if they can get the FCC's new standard broadband definition of 25 Mbps. Given the debt incurred by acquiring AT&T and Verizon's unwanted DSL and phone customers, it's unlikely Frontier could deploy gigabit speeds at any real scale even if it wanted to. There's also simply no incentive to deliver gigabit speeds when you're the only option in town for a huge swath of your subscriber base. Granted like so many telcos, Frontier customers are often lucky if they can get the FCC's new standard broadband definition of 25 Mbps. Given the debt incurred by acquiring AT&T and Verizon's unwanted DSL and phone customers, it's unlikely Frontier could deploy gigabit speeds at any real scale even if it wanted to. There's also simply no incentive to deliver gigabit speeds when you're the only option in town for a huge swath of your subscriber base.







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Most recommended from 50 comments



maartena

Elmo

Premium Member

join:2002-05-10

Orange, CA 24 recommendations maartena Premium Member 100 Mbps for everyone... How about instead of bringing 1 Gbps to 10% of customers..... bringing 100 Mbps to 100% of customers? Certainly there is a market demand for THAT!

spewak

R.I.P Dadkins

Premium Member

join:2001-08-07

Elk Grove, CA 15 recommendations spewak Premium Member Pot calling the kettle black Frontier, you shouldn't comment on anything with regards to internet speeds. You lousy, shoddy, race to 768kbps service! tmc8080

join:2004-04-24

Brooklyn, NY 1 edit 15 recommendations tmc8080 Member 3mbits? no market demand for 3 megabits either,

better figure out how to deploy a REAL broadband network before munis do it to replace you

ieolus

Support The Clecs

join:2001-06-19

Danbury, CT 14 recommendations ieolus Member OY Holy shit Frontier... I live in your footprint. If you build it, they will come!



If you keep us in 1.5MB DSL-hell, we will go with the Cable company, every time! rainlake

join:2006-10-03

Twinsburg, OH 12 recommendations rainlake Member Frontier: 'No Market Demand' for Gigabit Service that's exactly what hotmail, yahoo mail said when google launched gmail

Red Hazard

Premium Member

join:2012-07-21

O Fallon, IL 9 recommendations Red Hazard Premium Member No Support Our Neanderthal network cannot support it and therefore no one wants it. tkdslr

join:2004-04-24

Pompano Beach, FL 8 recommendations tkdslr Member Not at your prices... Gigabit is widely adopted in S korea.. But then again, they give one a fair value.



Meanwhile dominant internet providers in the US are extarcting every penny of profit they can squeeze out of each victim, without damaging their lower end offerings. Thus they're trapped in a box of their own making, once Google shows up they make the choice to step into the light. mikemacman

join:2004-05-29

Saint Paul, MN 7 recommendations mikemacman Member Incompetence quote: So there were some definite hiccups with that once the switch was thrown, and there was no way to know how that was going to work, really. There was some testing that was done, but the broad-scale work to get to all of our customers, to get through the switch, you really didn't know for sure.

These are not the people you want running an ISP.

McPolygon

join:2013-11-25

Bonney Lake, WA Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD

MikroTik RB4011

4 recommendations McPolygon Member No Market Demand = No Competitive Pressure Frontier will only roll Gigabit Service when there is sufficient competitive pressure to do so... I live in an area where we have full roll-out of Calix Gigabit ONTs that are well capable of gigabit speeds which I believe have a Calix GigaCenter back-end. The only thing holding Frontier back is lack of competitive pressure from Comcast. Once Comcast starts offering Gigabit speeds at a reasonable price that is when you will see Frontier get serious.

RedCaliSS

Premium Member

join:2004-08-21

Murrieta, CA 3 recommendations RedCaliSS Premium Member I have no need Sure had a few hiccups with the transition from Verizon, but speeds and latency were never an Issue. Frontiers website is a joke compared to Verizon, and is a major hassle calling in to Frontier (30-40 minute wait times).

Three people in this household, 2 stream video's, movies.. etc... one, online FPS gaming and I have 150/150 and that is has always been more then enough for me. Never had any internal issues in the household with lack of bandwidth... I personally have no need for gigabit service.



all hardware is gigabit capable, routers, switches, cabling, PC's, Laptops....

One massively huge gamebox, 4 servers, one is not internet facing.. (media/HTPC, large 12TB NAS, web, dev) couple of laptops and tablets, Western Digital streaming media box connected to one TV and never really had any issue with the speeds I pay for now.. Gigabit service? not for me... no real "killer apps" out there.

Yes I am on FIOS fortunately.

timothyhohar

join:2004-03-20

Apex, NC 2 recommendations timothyhohar Member No Demand? Is that why AT&T is Overbuilding in Durham, NC? "Is there market demand for it? I don't think there has been thus far," said the spokesman.



Yeah right. When AT&T thinks they can make money by overbuilding an existing ILEC, then you know you really suck as a service provider. elray

join:2000-12-16

Santa Monica, CA 2 recommendations elray Member Absolutely correct! Gigabit, schmigabit.



We'd be happy if we could actually get Fios, of 5-25M, at the prices Verizon offered.



Kudos to Frontier for acknowledging the difference between mere speaking and comprehending English.



My most maddening exchanges have always been with those very cool-sounding super-polite folks in Cebu with their audible deer-the-headlights effect; at least most Mumbains have been schooled in western humor.



Historically, Verizon's best "offshore" support was out of Mexico City.

Don't know if Frontier can access them.