ROADMs, broadband big ticket items for Frontier Communications in Illinois

Frontier Communications (NASDAQ: FTR) says it spent approximately $75.5 million to upgrade its infrastructure in Illinois last year. The network upgrades, which included new ROADM technology as well as extensions of its broadband footprint, will help support such Frontier services as broadband, digital phone, satellite video, VoIP, and customer premises equipment (data and voice systems, support for commercial businesses and E911 applications) with Web security/data backup through the Frontier Secure suite of services.

“One of our first and largest investments was upgrading Frontier’s backbone fiber network with ROADM technology that increased our capacity approximately 80 fold across our new 800 gigabit network for our existing and new high-speed customers,” said Mike Flynn, senior vice president and general manager of Frontier’s Illinois operations. “The flexible optical network capabilities of ROADM are important as network capacity continues to grow and demand for Frontier's higher-capacity residential and business broadband services increases. Frontier’s ROADM network platform will allow us to dramatically expand the availability of broadband in our Illinois service areas over the next two years.”

Meanwhile, the broadband footprint expansion brought such services to more than 82 towns, expanding availability from 59% to 72% of Frontier’s territory in the state. The company expects to reach 80% coverage this year.

“We are aggressively deploying Metro Ethernet and Dedicated Internet Access capabilities to serve the growing bandwidth needs of our commercial customers as well,” Flynn added. “These services are delivered via Frontier’s backbone network which includes more than 6,330 miles of fiber and connects all of the company’s central switching offices.”

All Frontier services are installed and maintained by the company’s U.S.-based work force. Frontier says it has more than 600 employees in Illinois. The company operates in 552 towns across the state, where it serves more than 500,000 customers.