Frontier Communications → [DSL] Milking Frontier for all their network is worth

I've had Frontier DSL for almost a year, and have been mostly satisfied for the entire time. When it was installed, download speeds were double what I had with my former ISP, so I was happy. They upgraded me to 6mbit service about 6-8 months ago, and I was very happy with it, though the $55 price tag was a bit steep (1 mile away Comcast sells 20mbit service for that price)

What makes me curious about some things is this: Frontier tells me my area supports up to 6.9 or 7.1mbit service, but I'm connecting with ADSL2+. Since it's connecting ADSL2+ and not anything older, the DSLAM should support ADSL2+ speeds, right? That means faster than 6.9 or 7.1, which are ADSL speeds? I'm only barely over 1km from the CO, and I know they either have fiber or a few T3 lines to support anything over 20 customers with 6mbit connections.

Since my modem was reporting a sync speed of over 8000kbit/s, I'm certain the CO supports higher speeds, and since there's a lot of fiber in my area and a high school with at least a 20mbit line who likely gets their service through Frontier, I imagine the CO can support more than 6.9 or 7.1 mbit/s. To test this theory, I spent a half hour on the phone with a customer support rep, who agreed to bump me up to the 12/2 service, even though Frontier says my area doesn't support it. With 12/2 service in an area only marked for 7.1, I should get any speed upgrades when they're available to us.

I'm also thinking that since I'm already syncing above what Frontier is saying my area supports, that I should be able to see over the 7.1mbps speeds. I know a lot of Frontier's former Verizon area is still stuck at 7.1 or even 3mbps, so I imagine a few people might be interested to see what they'll be doing with more rural areas that likely won't see VDSL for a while. We'll see, and I'll keep this updated as time goes on.

I suggest that we seven hundred potential customers are the expensive ugly stepchild.

I am thankful for my 1.5 mbps.

When I got Frontier, I too was thankful for my 1.5mbps, but I'm within 1.5km from the CO so I was upgraded within a few months to 6mbps. In areas with ADSL2+ or VDSL, you can hopefully see speeds of at least 3mbps, especially if you have repeaters or remote dslams or something of the sort. You could always tell Frontier you're having line trouble and see if they could put in a repeater. If your CO has the backhaul you could see more speed!

The set speeds are most likely to keep bandwidth usage in check, their network is not the strongest in some areas.

I'm close enough to get over 20Mbps on a single DSL line, however the highest speed I can buy is bonded 12Mbps(2x 6Mbps lines).

Speeds regularly drop to 2Mbps during the evening hours.

Some areas, yes, Frontier has a pretty weak network with limited backhaul. I've heard of some areas still being served by a single T1 line, but luckily I'm not in one of those areas. My CO is served by at least a T3 but probably either several T3 lines, or OCx as I know several people around here with 7mbps DSL. Hopefully my area really does support 10 or 12mbps. I'd be thrilled with a real 8 though.

A lot of Frontier COs have OC48 or GigE backhauls. If they are T3 fed they would be leasing a line from Verizon or some other provider. In southern tier NY Verizon won't increase the pipe on some VZ-FTR backhauls. Sad really, since FTR is really really trying

In the past, the Fiber optic connection my Central office used was in fact leased from Verizon. It's definitely gotten some capacity boosts over time and I'm quite sure it's a Gigabit Ethernet line with all of the speed boosts they're bringing into my area. What I don't know though, is if it's now Frontier owned. Frontier owns the fiber going between the CO to the remotes.

Since Frontier is focusing a lot of money into getting their network up and running like it should, it doesn't surprise me they own all the fiber from CO's to remote locations. It does surprise me they'd stick with companies like VZ, who refuse to lease more bandwidth to them.

In my area, if Frontier wants more bandwidth, there are lots of options, even though I'm in the country. Zayo, which is a company with nationwide and international fiber, has dark fiber running along a highway just a few miles away, and they've said they're willing to lease multiple gigabits to anyone who wants it for not too high a price. However, I bet Frontier has plenty of bandwidth to my CO because I've never experienced a congestion issue. It was a Verizon CO until Frontier took over, and Verizon only ever offered T1 service from that CO. I know there weren't very many T1 subscribers out here, so I imagine VZ never invested in much backhaul. I also would guess mine was a CO Frontier wired up with Fiber since we couldn't even get DSL service until around 2008 or 2009. With new a new backhaul connection installed in 2007 or 2008, why run a T3/DS3 or a bunch of T1s? It only makes sense to lease a OCx line.

I talked to a great Frontier rep in Washington about upgrading my service. He did an Address Verification and determined I'm eligible for 12mbps bonded service and he'll be pushing the order through tonight. I got his direct number and extension in case it doesn't go through or I have issues, so hopefully it's working either tonight or by Monday. There might be some weird voodoo magic going on to get me 12mbps service, so I might have to wait for a tech to come out and mess with the demarc/NID.

I'll post again when I know more.

I was suprised when frontier had 25 mbps down,and 3 up,where i live,i live 4 miles from the city.

Frontier is in a great position in areas where cable isn't available, because it doesn't cost much to deliver 12-25mbps to customers. Say it costs $10,000 to run 10gbit fiber (4x OC-48 connections or a single OC-196) to a CO and that CO can deliver at least 12mbit if not 25mbit or even 40mbit to at least 150 customers. Assuming Frontier isn't leasing the bandwidth from another company, they are using around 40% of their available bandwidth if all 150 customers are using a full 25mbps at the same time, which is statistically improbable. It also means those customers cost Frontier less than $100 each to connect, plus the cost of DSLAMS, which is about $700 for every 8 customers. So you're looking at under $200 per customer plus a modem. Not too bad. And that still gives expansion possibilities of at least 100%, assuming everyone is on a 25mbps plan, which isn't likely with DSL.

For not much per customer, Frontier can deliver incredible speeds. Fiber to the home is nice for over 50mbps, but for anything less than 30, it's not really necessary. I'm excited to see VDSL2 deployed to more rural areas.

Keep in mind the cost for fiber is 100% pulled from the air and could be VERY off, but as long as the fiber is being pulled from within 2 miles, it's plausible. If anything over 5 miles, the prices starts around $250,000 to run fiber. If the lines are leased, it's around $250,000 to run it 5 miles and then around 15k per month per gigabit. At that point, 25mbit service is less enticing for Frontier.

I hope someone geeky enjoys this post!

I've finally got Customer Service to push through the order to bump me up to 12mbps service! They sent the order to the provisioning office and I should know by Monday if they've been messing with me this whole time or not.

I admit I was a little annoyed when the CSR said all we can do now is "cross our fingers it works"

What kind of company tells you to cross your fingers and hope for the best??

Maybe the rep is saying that because they're hopeful that you will get it rather than be thrown around by whatever forces beyond their control from getting 12Mbps. It's been known that many DSL providers don't keep good records of what speeds can be gotten for the CSRs. It's a big guess.

Frontier's area supervisor called me just now asking what's going on as I called him during his vacation and told of some issues happening with my 12mbps order. He told me as far as he knows, VDSL isn't available at my CO so the only way to get 12mbps service is through bonding of two lines at my house. He said he'll be checking to see for sure if VDSL is available with the networking equipment in the CO--if there's a different line card or DSLAM supporting VDSL that I can be put on, and if not, we can do ADSL2+ bonding if the order for it has been put through.

He confirmed the way bonding would work: I get a new modem and they run a second wire pair to my house (or connect a second in the office), then run CAT5 from the NID to the new modem, and the new modem does the bonding on my premises, so from the outside it just looks like I have 2 separate 7mbit connections, when bonded, function like a 12mbit line.

We'll see. Customer service told me it would be Monday before I would know for sure if the order for 12mbps service went through, and this supervisor is checking either tonight or on Monday, as I doubt he works weekends. Taking a hint from the customer service reps, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for 12meg service by Monday night!

I'm not sure if I'm actually getting anywhere with this. I emailed askfrontier@ftr.com because that's the only reliable way to get someone to look at your account when you want more speed.

They told me my area only shows up as capable of 6mbps, blah blah blah. The same things they always tell me, to which I always respond that two CSRs have done an address verification and have told me I do qualify for 12mbps bonded service due to my distance from the CO, or because my line is blessed by a variety of deities.

They responded they can have the supervisor call me but he won't be able to look at my account. That will get me nowhere, so I see no point. I relayed to them the supervisor told me the details of bonded service and all that's required are two wire pairs installed and a bonded capable modem. Install them, wire up Cat5e, and we're good. So I told the AskFrontier people to tell the techs to install the second wire pair and get me a new modem if that's all that's required.

I already installed new Cat5e wiring from the NID into my house, wired the phone jack, and managed to slightly lower my Attenuation. I told them everything on my side of the NID is ready as best as I possibly can make it, and it's up to them now.

Frontier is a good ISP but they're really weird. They're a lot like government: one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing and they're not even aware the feet exist.

You're beginning to understand. But, they are actually worse than government.

They responded they can have the supervisor call me but he won't be able to look at my account.

Actually having a supervisor call you that basically could but wont bother to look at your account is or may be a really good thing.

I say this because reaching a person at this level puts him above the CS managers and he would rather not even have to talk with you. And waist rolls downhill his take on this will be to tell someone to fix this so he doesn't have to talk with you again.

I originally thought that if the area supervisor looked at my issue, the problem could be fixed more quickly. However, last time he looked at my account, nothing changed. So I'm just waiting to see if corporate can get the techs to run my second line. I'm hopeful, but at the same time I'm not expecting much success. It took a lot of work just to get a solid 6/1 connection out of them. I'll be surprised if I can ever get close to the full 12/2 I'm paying for.

After a long time and a lot of effort, Frontier has went out of their way to make sure I can't get bonded DSL. The moment I got the email from them letting me know this, I called Comcast and scheduled installation of 20mbps/4mbps Performance internet for February 1. It's sad because my ping times are under half of what Comcast customers in my area have. Gaming might suffer a little, and I will definitely have a data cap, but when I'm able to download at more than 5.75mbps on a really good day, I'll be happy.

Since I'm an IT person, I'll still probably keep up with posting in this forum. I do have friends who are still on Frontier, after all! Thanks for everyone's help.

***Now let's just hope Comcast will come install what I want

Good for you, very hopeful that everything works out for you. I await the day that we have competition here in the WV mountains. I will jump ship in an instance.

Well I wish I had good news about the installation of Comcast Internet at my house but they told me no. I've been through this before and without paying at least $1000 they won't run service to me. It's sad but it looks like I'm sticking with 5.5mbps on a good day.

*sigh*