Frontier expanded its fiber reach to 60K homes in 2020

Emerging from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy soon, Frontier Communications executives say the company is ready to complete its transformation into a data-focused provider of telecom services. frontier will continue to de-emphasize its unprofitable video business and focus on broadband. As of the end of 2020 it had completed its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) builds to 60,000 additional homes. Of those 60,000 homes passed, Frontier said that more than 44,000 were to greenfield locations such as new housing developments. The company also said that it had 55,000 households covered with its fixed wireless broadband service that it built as part of its Connect America Funds project. Frontier said that it had 9,000 consumer fiber net adds in the fourth quarter, up from 7,000 fiber net adds in the third quarter. Frontier said it ended 2020 with 3.3 million consumer customers, down from 3.4 million customers in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company also said it lost 31,000 consumer DSL customers in the fourth quarter, which is an increase over a loss of 21,000 in the third quarter. Frontier said that the losses in DSL customers are part of its strategy to limit the sale of 1-3 Mbps DSL offerings and focus on moving those customers to higher speed offerings.