Frontier Communications, serving customers across 29 U.S. states, announced that it has reached a milestone as part of the FCC Connect America Fund program (CAF) ahead of schedule.
Frontier noted that the FCC CAF program requires companies that have accepted funding to deploy broadband to 40% of the eligible locations by the end of 2017. Under the program, as of the end of June Frontier had reached the 40% target in nine states, namely Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington and West Virginia.
Nationwide, Frontier stated that it is currently delivering broadband service to approximately 238,000 households and small businesses in its CAF-eligible areas, and has improved connection speeds to approximately 746,000 additional locations. The broadband expansion involved a combination of Frontier capital investment and resources the FCC has made available through the CAF program.
Frontier is marketing broadband offerings to households with newly provided or improved broadband speeds. Frontier offers speeds of up to 115 Mbit/s, depending on the distance from its nearest facilities, with many newly connected locations able to receive speeds of at least 25 Mbit/s.
Through its involvement in the FCC CAF program, Frontier will use $332 million in annual funding to extend broadband with a speed of at least 10 Mbit/s to 774,000 households and businesses over the lifetime of the program.
* In June, Frontier announced it was providing broadband service to previously unserved residents in 25 counties in Ohio and West Virginia. In Ohio, the company extended service to 12,600 CAF-eligible households and improve speeds to a further 33,600 households. In West Virginia, it delivered broadband to approximately 16,900 eligible households and improved speeds to an additional 117,000 households.
