FRONTIER WANT OUT OF CABLE RECOMMENDS DIRECT TV /DISH

[SQUEEZON]

Frontier after just a few months of taking over Verizon Fios, wants out of
cabhttp://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/03/frontier_pulls_out_of_cable_tv.htmlle business in select Oregon markets, recommending Direct TV or Dish

 

[CK SatGuy]

So what's going to happen to all the property frontier bought from verizon. Is frontier going to try and give it back to verizon?

 

[SamCdbs]

This is in line with Frontier's business plan.

To review, back when Ma Bell was broken up in the early 80s, it only affected about 80% of the USA, because the remainder had "independent" telephone companies. Roughly, most places where Ma was not the phone company were rural, or at least used to be rural back when the country was getting wired up for phones. Largest of the "non-Bells" was GTE.

Frontier was an amalgum of several "non-Bells" including Rochester, Citizens, and the original Frontier systems. Verizon was an amalgum of two "baby Bells", holding the Bell areas in the Atlantic coastal states from Virginia northward, and GTE, itself an amalgum of the original GTE and several other "non-Bells", incuding ConTel, with random mostly rural systems in 40 states.

Verizon was thus left with a dominant position in its core states, and rural and suburban systems randomly around the country. After selling out of Iowa, Alabama, Missouri, Hawaii, and the northern New England states in smaller transactions, it packaged it non-core assets (and West Virginia, a slowly dying state) and sold these all out to Frontier.

Frontier wants to be in the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) business. That, and DSL, it feels still has a long lifespan in the mostly rural places it does business in. Only a very few systems has FIOS and there is no business return for wiring more for it. Verizion wants to be in the POTS business only in big coastal cites. It sees the future in "content", like FIOS.

Personally, I see logic in what Frontier is doing. There is still life in POTS in rural America. A merger with Century and FairPoint, the other two big rural telephone companies, would create a major communications player.

 

[TheKrell]

That makes sense except, in rural areas, the wires to homes must be very long. Heck, I'm inside the Washington Beltway, and yet I am 28,000 ft from my CO. No DSL here.

 

[Laddyboy]

This is in line with Frontier's business plan.

To review, back when Ma Bell was broken up in the early 80s, it only affected about 80% of the USA, because the remainder had "independent" telephone companies. Roughly, most places where Ma was not the phone company were rural, or at least used to be rural back when the country was getting wired up for phones. Largest of the "non-Bells" was GTE.

Frontier was an amalgum of several "non-Bells" including Rochester, Citizens, and the original Frontier systems. Verizon was an amalgum of two "baby Bells", holding the Bell areas in the Atlantic coastal states from Virginia northward, and GTE, itself an amalgum of the original GTE and several other "non-Bells", incuding ConTel, with random mostly rural systems in 40 states.

Verizon was thus left with a dominant position in its core states, and rural and suburban systems randomly around the country. After selling out of Iowa, Alabama, Missouri, Hawaii, and the northern New England states in smaller transactions, it packaged it non-core assets (and West Virginia, a slowly dying state) and sold these all out to Frontier.

Frontier wants to be in the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) business. That, and DSL, it feels still has a long lifespan in the mostly rural places it does business in. Only a very few systems has FIOS and there is no business return for wiring more for it. Verizion wants to be in the POTS business only in big coastal cites. It sees the future in "content", like FIOS.

Personally, I see logic in what Frontier is doing. There is still life in POTS in rural America. A merger with Century and FairPoint, the other two big rural telephone companies, would create a major communications player.

I'm not so sure I agree with this. Frontier has my area of so-called rural Illinois. Many of us have dropped them as they cost quite a bit and we have cell phones anyway. I was paying $100 for POTS and 3M internet. I switched to 760k internet lite to say a few bucks and couldn't tell any difference. Netflix streaming was not high quality even with the 3 MB service. We used to be tethered if we wanted internet, but now we have wireless providers in the area with 8M service which are cheaper than Frontier. DSL is so limited because of distance. POTS is a losing business strategy imho.

 

[Bobby]

That makes sense except, in rural areas, the wires to homes must be very long. Heck, I'm inside the Washington Beltway, and yet I am 28,000 ft from my CO. No DSL here.

All your telco has to do is to bring a fiber feed to a Remote Terminal somewhere a lot closer to you and, voila, you will have DSL.....

 

[SQUEEZON]

I could have said it Sam, but you said it better! Frontier has indicated it wants to keep DSL service but not cable television. All of this after they had an aggresive push to sign customers up for it. Sure glad I kept Dish
and just got the DSL!

 

[wallyhts]

LOL!!

Makes you wonder why Verizon was selling huh?

 

[Stargazer]

Verizon was thus left with a dominant position in its core states, and rural and suburban systems randomly around the country. After selling out of Iowa, Alabama, Missouri, Hawaii, and the northern New England states in smaller transactions, it packaged it non-core assets (and West Virginia, a slowly dying state) and sold these all out to Frontier.

Can you please elaborate on West Virginia as being a slowly dying state?

 

[bobvick]

This is in line with Frontier's business plan.

To review, back when Ma Bell was broken up in the early 80s, it only affected about 80% of the USA, because the remainder had "independent" telephone companies. Roughly, most places where Ma was not the phone company were rural, or at least used to be rural back when the country was getting wired up for phones. Largest of the "non-Bells" was GTE.

Frontier was an amalgum of several "non-Bells" including Rochester, Citizens, and the original Frontier systems. Verizon was an amalgum of two "baby Bells", holding the Bell areas in the Atlantic coastal states from Virginia northward, and GTE, itself an amalgum of the original GTE and several other "non-Bells", incuding ConTel, with random mostly rural systems in 40 states.

Verizon was thus left with a dominant position in its core states, and rural and suburban systems randomly around the country. After selling out of Iowa, Alabama, Missouri, Hawaii, and the northern New England states in smaller transactions, it packaged it non-core assets (and West Virginia, a slowly dying state) and sold these all out to Frontier.

Frontier wants to be in the POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) business. That, and DSL, it feels still has a long lifespan in the mostly rural places it does business in. Only a very few systems has FIOS and there is no business return for wiring more for it. Verizion wants to be in the POTS business only in big coastal cites. It sees the future in "content", like FIOS.

Personally, I see logic in what Frontier is doing. There is still life in POTS in rural America. A merger with Century and FairPoint, the other two big rural telephone companies, would create a major communications player.

CenturyLink is in the process of buying Qwest. This will make them the 3rd largest telecom. I could see in the future where them, Frontier, FairPoint, and Windstream might merge to make a super POTS provider.

 

[navychop]

I read the article. Wow, what a kick in the teeth! I'm sure the list of people paying $500 for an installation will be worth money - to scammers.

 

[navychop]

Can you please elaborate on West Virginia as being a slowly dying state?

I was wondering if someone would ask that. Now, are we discussing "slowly" or "dying" or both? :haha

Disclaimer: I own property in WV. You'd hardly know they were Yankees.

 

[wallyhts]

Can you please elaborate on West Virginia as being a slowly dying state?

I just hope your not one of them wvu fans. Go Herd!!!!

Not to but words in anyone's mouth but I lived in Huntington during school before moving back to Kentucky. Correct if wrong but most people are on the older side most people leave the state after they get a degree so not much new blood.

 

[navychop]

Home construction has blossomed over the last few years in WV near the MD border on I-81. Falling Waters area.

 

[DishSubLA]

I think the fact that Verizon FiOS (along with AT&T Uverse) are paying the highest rates for channels (lack of critical mass) is a major factor in wanting to get out of the MVPD business. Verizon and AT&T have deep pockets to subsidize the cost to be competitive, but not Frontier.

 

[wallyhts]

Home construction has blossomed over the last few years in WV near the MD border on I-81. Falling Waters area.

People work in DC but live in WV right?

 

[navychop]

Yes, this is true. We have one employee who does exactly that. But I don't think all the building can be ascribed to that. It's 90+ minutes one way. And significantly more in rush hour.

 

[Laddyboy]

I read the article. Wow, what a kick in the teeth! I'm sure the list of people paying $500 for an installation will be worth money - to scammers.

I'd guess so at that rate. I'm guessing the high cost is to actually keep new customers from signing on and to recover the cost of equipment if they are foolish enough to sign up. I had a Fios tech tell me the cost of an install is over a grand with overhead thrown in. There's a fiber run from the street box to the house, an optical/digital interface, a backup battery supply mounted inside the house, a commercial wireless router, and the DVR/receiver.

 

[Stargazer]

I assume what was meant was the poor economy here and yes I have heard of so many moving out of state after getting their degree. I think the economy has already gotten about as bad as it is going to get here though.

 

[SamCdbs]

Leaving out the three easternmost counties, which are becoming a bedroom community for DC, WV is, and has been for most of my life, an economic basketcase. If you discount those three counties, WV again lost population in the last census. It is, further, the oldest state in terms of average age. Retirees, left over from when things were good still live here, but their kids and grandkids long ago moved away in search of jobs. When those retirees are gone, the term "depopulated" will start to apply to many parts of the state.

For example, McDowell County today has a total population that is 19% of what it was in 1950. Granted, the most extreme example, but hardly atypical.

As to phones, Verizon made no bones about it. It included WV as the only state where it used to be the Bell entity in the Frontier transaction because it saw no growth potental.