If it's anything like their rocky deal with Fairpoint, Verizon's recent decision to sell a massive chunk of their less profitable DSL and landline networks to Frontier Communications is going to be very good for Verizon. The deals allow Verizon to ignore areas they don't want to upgrade, offload a huge chunk of debt, while providing significant tax breaks. But the deals may also be good for cable companies, since the smaller carriers gobbling up these networks are usually in no position to seriously invest in next-generation upgrades.

With the deal 8-12 months away, Comcast is already courting impacted customers in Verizon territory, according to Telecompetitor. A letter being sent to customers in sale markets infers it's a good time to switch, and Comcast may not be wrong. Comcast has promised DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades across their entire footprint by the end of 2010 -- while Frontier has no immediate plans for next-gen upgrades -- and in some markets has struggled to provide even 6Mbps DSL service.

Given the problems Fairpoint is having integrating Verizon networks in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the Frontier customers impacted in this latest deal are probably already very nervous. The deal immediately infuses Frontier, which has 2.3 million customers, with 4.8 million new residential and small-business phone lines and 1 million broadband connections. That kind of sudden growth means support issues, something that in the case of Fairpoint, Time Warner Cable took easy advantage of with ads highlighting Fairpoint's dysfunction.