Frontier Employs ADTRAN for Next Phase of Its Broadband Expansion Effort

Frontier Communications (NYS: FTR) continues to work to convince customers in the new territories it entered into when it bought out Verizon's (NYS: VZ) lines in 14 rural states last year that it can provide decent broadband service.

The service provider has set a lofty goal of bringing DSL service to at least 85 percent of this customer base by 2013.

To achieve this goal, Frontier has once again tapped ADTRAN (NAS: ADTN) for a three-year broadband expansion project. In this latest network expansion project, Frontier has begun to deploy ADTRAN's Total Access 5000 platform in addition to its Total Access 1248a and 1148a.

"They have selected us for the three-year broadband expansion project and hit the goals they identified publicly," said Kevin Morgan, Director of Product Marketing, ADTRAN, Carrier Networks Division, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "We're strengthening that partnership, and the 5000 fits in nicely with their ongoing move to an all IP network, while giving them a single platform to deploy multiple services."

ADTRAN and Frontier are hardly strangers. Last year, Frontier leveraged ADTRAN's Total Access 5000 as an aggregation and DSL platform and its Fiber to the Node (FTTN) products (Total Access 1100 and 1200).

Outside of broadband, Frontier also leverages ADTRAN's optical switching, GPON and router/switches for its managed services offering.

"By and large, they understand the business case and what makes sense to deploy in those unserved and underserved markets and our product set really fits well with them," Morgan said.

Long abandoned by Verizon in favor of its larger markets, Frontier has been making continual public relations and network expansion efforts to assure consumers that they will be taken care of.

One market where Frontier is being particularly aggressive in its expansion efforts is West Virginia, the largest state it serve. The service provider recently set a goal of advancing its broadband access ranking there from 47th place to the top five, by 2013.

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