Frontier lights gigabit fiber network in Durham

Frontier Communications (NASDAQ: FTR) has joined the gigabit broadband party. The company says network speeds up to 1 Gbps are immediately available to business and residential customers in selected communities in Durham, NC.

The areas to receive the new services are Carolina Arbors, American Tobacco Campus, Durham City Center, Research Triangle Park – Park Center Development, One Park Center, and Jordan at Southpoint.

"Frontier has invested more than $80 million to upgrade and enhance our North Carolina network over the last few years," said chairman and CEO Maggie Wilderotter. "Our newest upgrade to our fiber network offers speeds up to 50 times faster than cable to business and residential customers in Durham. Frontier’s vast fiber-optic network already plays a critical role in this community, offering speeds up to 25 Mbps to more than 70% of households we serve in Durham. We are leveraging that robust network to offer blazing fast speeds up to 1 gig."

Dennis Bloss, Frontier's vice president and general manager in North Carolina, remarked, "This significant upgrade allows customers to download 100 MB of data in seconds instead of minutes, take advantage of the cloud to help lower hardware and application costs, and support dozens of online devices at the same time."

The American Tobacco Campus is among the first to benefit from gigabit services. Jim Goodmon, president and CEO of Capitol Broadcasting Co., which owns the American Tobacco Campus, joined Wilderotter and Bloss for a ceremonial "fiber splicing" at the campus.

Goodmon said the American Tobacco Campus was excited to provide "the fastest internet connection available" to tenants, visitors, and 4,000 Durham Bulls baseball fans. "There has been a lot of talk about gigabit service and now Frontier is actually providing it," he said.

Over the coming weeks, Frontier will be announcing additional locations to receive gigabit services.

Frontier is able to offer gigabit speeds by working with telecommunications partners Calix Inc. (NYSE: CALX) and ADTRAN Inc. (NASDAQ: ADTN), Bloss added (see "Frontier to deploy ADTRAN platforms in three-year FTTN broadband expansion project"). Both AT&T and Google Fiber have targeted Durham for 1-Gbps broadband services as well (see "AT&T negotiates for 1-Gbps FTTH in North Carolina" and "Google Fiber targets 34 cities and towns for expansion").

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