CHARLESTON, W.Va. — After Frontier Communications accepted offers from the FCC totaling more than $283 million last week to offer broadband to its customers, the company’s GM and vice president in West Virginia, Kevin Wallick explained how the offer will enable Frontier to provide better service.
The offers will allow Frontier to officer broadband to more than 650,000 rural locations throughout the 28 states that it serves. Wallick said the funding would allow Frontier to expand its services in ‘last mile’ efforts in the Mountain State.
“Frontier was excited to go after this funding when it was made available by the government,” he said. “We went after that funding in earnest, looking at that opportunity and trying to figure out where we could deploy as much new technology as we could.”
He said that since 2010 Frontier has invested $500 million in the state.
“I’m hopeful that in the next 30 to 60 days I’ll be able to tell you more with some of the specifics to the area,” Wallick said. “We’d like to be able to let those communities know it’s going to be coming here soon. And of course everyone will want it first.”
He knows that there’s still some work to do to help make the transition smoother for customers.
“There’s a lot of work that we have to do to be ready for that last mile,” Wallick said. “Our back haul transport that had to be upgraded is a part of that. We’ll be ready as we do these last mile builds so people will have a seamless transition to get online to do whatever they want to do.”
Frontier Communications’ investments over the past four years have made broadband service available to more than 1.1 million new households throughout the company’s service areas.