Dish Partner Frontier buys 4.8 million lines

[nelson61]

Frontier bought 4.8 million rural lines from Verizon. Frontier is partnered with Dish for TV service. Might boost Dish customer base and help replace defection of AT&T.

Verizon sells phone lines to Frontier for $5.25 billion | U.S. | Reuters

 

[HDRoberts]

Hadn't considered this side effect. Should be good for Dish as this is more rural territory. Dish marketing needs to get with Frontier on this.

 

[Kirby Baker]

This affects me, Michigan being one of the divested states from Verizon. Wonder if Frontier/Dish is planning on expanding HSI options in the affected states, as I would probably consider a DSL/phone package if DSL ever came to this area. Until that happens, I have to keep paying the bankrupt Charter company for both of those services.

 

[ncted]

I had heard a rumor not too long ago from a family member that Verizon customers would be able to get a Triple Play with Dish. Must have been what he meant. At the time, it made no sense.

Ted

 

[pfan1981]

I bundled my DISH with Frontier last February (see signature). I couldn't be happier and let me tell you why.

1. Customer Service. To do anything, you must call Frontier and they'll get ahold of DISH. The best part, Frontier has the call back feature where they call you back when it's your "turn". This way your phone doesn't stick to your ear after 45 minutes. Also, they all are American. Frontier and DISH do a three way call and you are always speaking with an english speaker.

2. The cost savings. Frontier ran a promotion that you get the 250 for the remainder of 2009 for $9.99/mo. Of course I have my DVR fees, extra receiver fee, HD fee, etc. But still with pretty much the best package (minus HBO and Showtime), I'm paying a total of just under $60. BTW, that includes the digital landline with caller ID, three way calling, voicemail, call waiting, and 100 long distance minutes (never use, but what the hay).

Our family is stoked about this partnership and look forward to continuing it in the future. This is a WIN, WIN for DISH.

 

[Stargazer]

I have read good and bad things about this. I heard that the good part would be that many areas that Verizon refused to launch DSL may have a chance at getting it now. The bad things I heard was that Frontier does not like providing very high speeds due to not upgrading their equipment as much as Verizon does and that they will have less money available to do it than what Verizon would have had to have done so and to dream on if you think they will upgrade many areas to DSL and that their service was not very good because it was inconsistant.

 

[Laddyboy]

I have read good and bad things about this. I heard that the good part would be that many areas that Verizon refused to launch DSL may have a chance at getting it now. The bad things I heard was that Frontier does not like providing very high speeds due to not upgrading their equipment as much as Verizon does and that they will have less money available to do it than what Verizon would have had to have done so and to dream on if you think they will upgrade many areas to DSL and that their service was not very good because it was inconsistant.

I live in a rural area of IL served by Frontier. We don't have super high speed DSL, but it works well and they upgrade equipment every few years. I'm getting DSL lite (700k) for $20. 1000k+ costs $50. Area tower wireless is $50 plus equipment. Not many options outside the cities.

 

[M Sparks]

Yeah, my dad has DSL from Frontier, and he lives outside the city limits of Lake Havasu City, which itself is only about 45,000 people.

Seems like he has problems with stuff going down a lot (more his phone than DSL), but when it works, it's great. Better than nothing, which is what I have out here in the woods.

 

[Stargazer]

They make you take phone service to get DSL don't they? I hear they are very expensive and that we can expect our bills to go up $20-40 per month.

 

[Dirtydan]

I have Frontier, I think you need the phone service in order to get DSL, but as stated above it is $19.95 for phone with all the extras, including a second line for no additional cost, also the 100 free minutes carries over to a max of 500 minutes. That being said, the DSL costs me $44.95 for 1000k. I have not signed up for Dish from Frontier, but have thought about it.
Dan

 

[Laddyboy]

They make you take phone service to get DSL don't they? I hear they are very expensive and that we can expect our bills to go up $20-40 per month.

Yeppers, in my area the phone service is $35 plus taxes. Phone and DSL lite is $60. I used to pay $90 for phone and 1000k+ DSL with taxes.

 

[jacmyoung]

Well just today for the first time heard a commercial on the radio while driving, E* was selling Internet/DISH service for $95/mo. or something like that. Did not get the details.

 

[cparker]

I have DSL through Frontier and I have my Dish bundled in. I have 3meg down for $39.95 and the phone portion of my bill is $29.95 and includes all long distance within the US. I can drop it to $19.95 and still have long distance up to 200 minutes and we never use over 200 minutes of LD so I'll probably use this plan at teh new house.

The comment about customer service is right on. Call Frontier, "I have an issue with...." and if they can't handle it right now by themselves, they conference in a Dish rep (or tech... depending...) and it gets fixed without having to fluently speak Punjabi. No offense to anyone of indian heritage, but some of the off shore folks are really hard to understand.

There are some drawbacks to bundling with your phone company. I can not, for example, create a dish account on dish's web site. My dish account number comes up as invalid. This is even though I've used a valid dish account number (not my phone company account number) so there are features available to customers from Dish that I can't take advantage of even though I'm a dish customer.

Not a huge deal for me, but it would be nice.

 

[Stargazer]

That is not a bad deal that you are getting cparker. We pay around $65 currently with Verizon just for unlimited long distance with the caller id / call waiting / voicemail. Sounds like Frontier is a better deal then.

If you already have a Dish account online then wouldn't you still have access to it if you bundled with Frontier? How much of a discount do you get when you bundle with Frontier?

 

[DSpud]

I have Frontier at my home in Illinois. I dont' know exactly how much it is, but I know that you have to have phone service to get DSL. Thats just how it is in rural areas. They know there is no competition, and plus there is considerable more expense to provide it there. I live in a county with a population of only 5,000 people. Again, thats the COUNTY. The town has 400 people, its the second biggest town in the county. The speed is only 3MB, but hey, its a blessing as far as I am concerned they provide it there at all. 20 miles up the road in the next county, VERIZON owns the local lines and a no name local cable company owns the cable system. The town has almost 2,000 people in it, and is much closer to "civilization" than we are. Guess what, they have NO BROADBAND OPTIONS THERE. For this towns sake, I am hoping that this is one of the areas sold to Frontier.

I currently live in Laredo, with AT&T naked DSL, $35.00 a month at 6mb. I don't' download movies or anything so that is more than fast enough for me here.

 

[ryon_m1]

I have Frontier at my home in Illinois. I dont' know exactly how much it is, but I know that you have to have phone service to get DSL. Thats just how it is in rural areas. They know there is no competition, and plus there is considerable more expense to provide it there. I live in a county with a population of only 5,000 people. Again, thats the COUNTY. The town has 400 people, its the second biggest town in the county. The speed is only 3MB, but hey, its a blessing as far as I am concerned they provide it there at all. 20 miles up the road in the next county, VERIZON owns the local lines and a no name local cable company owns the cable system. The town has almost 2,000 people in it, and is much closer to "civilization" than we are. Guess what, they have NO BROADBAND OPTIONS THERE. For this towns sake, I am hoping that this is one of the areas sold to Frontier.

I know exactly how DSpud feels about this. I live north of you in BC and heck I don't even think we have 5,00 people in our county haha. But we have been one of the unlucky areas that has been owned by Verizon and now with all of this going down hopefully we can get something done. I have been working on many different projects to try and get us better rural high speed up here and anytime Verizon had to be involved you could count on a letter from them saying that this area is of no meaning to them and that they only have to provide us with basic phone!! So when I saw this Frontier announcement yesterday I could have jumped through the roof for joy, even though the thunderstorm would have got me haha.

 

[Laddyboy]

I know exactly how DSpud feels about this. I live north of you in BC and heck I don't even think we have 5,00 people in our county haha. But we have been one of the unlucky areas that has been owned by Verizon and now with all of this going down hopefully we can get something done. I have been working on many different projects to try and get us better rural high speed up here and anytime Verizon had to be involved you could count on a letter from them saying that this area is of no meaning to them and that they only have to provide us with basic phone!! So when I saw this Frontier announcement yesterday I could have jumped through the roof for joy, even though the thunderstorm would have got me haha.

I'm surprised you don't have CTI Wireless or some other wireless internet company operating out there. We have them here in central Central IL because Frontier or any other DSL isn't available very many miles from the CO and that leaves a lot of people out of luck for broadband otherwise.

 

[fredp]

I hope Frontier's financial stability is better then my local phone company Fairpoint.. Verizon shed their land lines here in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and this struggling company bought them. Problems with existing deliverables as well as future plan scalebacks have caused the company to just about go off the cliff so to speak. They offer DirecTv as a bundle but in having dealt with their horific support I sure wouldn't want another service from that outfit. The only one making money is Verizon.

 

[cparker]

That is not a bad deal that you are getting cparker. We pay around $65 currently with Verizon just for unlimited long distance with the caller id / call waiting / voicemail. Sounds like Frontier is a better deal then.

If you already have a Dish account online then wouldn't you still have access to it if you bundled with Frontier? How much of a discount do you get when you bundle with Frontier?

I had an existing Dish account when Frontier started bundling. My Dish account number changed when the bundle kicked in. The first couple of digits in the account number delineate it to Dish as a bundled account. The bundling only saves me $5 a month but 5 bucks is 5 bucks.

I have the normal caller ID, call waiting, voicemail stuff and I request all of it disabled except caller ID. I HATE call waiting. I HATE when someone says, "Hold on I have another call". Like... I was here FIRST. If you have an IMPORTANT call, tell me and we'll talk later. I'm one of those a$$hats that hangs up on them when they put me on hold to take another call.

Anyways... I really like the service I get. We have our own repair guy. When someone says, "Oh... well I have FIOS", I say, "Yeah, but I've got KEN!"

We have his cell number. "You have any problems at all you just call me. I'll take care of the work order and get it done for you" and he DOES. When I bought the house we had the whole electrical system rewired. I called Frontier and told them I needed a phone connection. Ken came over and was all like, "You already ran cat5 to everywhere? And he just did the new DMarc and drop from the pole. And then came in and hooked up jacks and did a nice job separating voice from DSL at my patch panel. So now any jack in the house can be either network or phone. No charge for rewire. He just had me billed for a couple jacks (since that's really all he had to do)

Thanks, Ken!

 

[bighick]

I bundle with windstream and only get get $5 off a month . All phone companies I have seen you can get DSL with a very degraded phone line plan, like no free locals or any of that but free 800 # calling but I don't even have a phone line plugged into it.