Frontier is dropping hints that the telco may want to get out of the traditional cable business and instead shift to a streaming video approach. Numerous smaller cable companies have been considering such a shift for several years, noting how they lack the negotiations leverage (enjoyed by bigger companies like AT&T and Comcast) necessary to make a decent profit off of TV service. Some of these companies, like CenturyLink, have already made it clear they want to hang up on IPTV, and are trialing their own streaming offerings.
Speaking on the company's earnings call this week, Frontier CEO Dan McCarthy strongly hinted that the growing telco could follow suit.
"There have been some advances and some changes in the landscape on the OTT side," McCarthy said. "We could spend time developing our own or we may partner with others, but I think that will be an important part of the strategy going forward."
Of course many of these telcos face a double whammy. They're not only struggling to stay in the traditional TV race, but they're consistently losing customers tired of lagging DSL customers to cable. In fact, cable has consistently been adding 99% of each quarter's net subscriber additions for just this reason.
That said, McCarthy didn't really offer anything more concrete on the company's shifting TV ambitions.
"One of the key priorities is revenue generation, whether that's really on the commercial side or it's really making sure that our speeds and our network are congestion-free going forward," the CEO said. "More and more video traffic is flowing and we want, whether it's our OTT product or it's someone else's, we want to make sure that's a good experience for customers."