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Once Decried As 'Hype,' Frontier Quietly Offers Limited 1 Gbps

Last year, Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter stated that people don't really need 1 Gbps, and that the 3 to 6 Mbps most of her customers can get was just fine for most people. Last summer, trying to downplay the fact said 3-6 Mbps is painfully uncompetitive, Wilderotter called Google Fiber "hype" that "confuses customers," and that even talking about 1 Gbps services was something that was "disrespectful" to the customer base.


A few months later and Frontier is now playing "me too" on the 1 Gbps fiber to the press release game. Execs had been hinting at such a service for a few months, and users in our Frontier forum recently noted that Frontier's speedtest page now directs Gigabit users to their own specific speedtest.

Most of these recent announcements involve offering 1 Gbps service to a select number of developments where fiber is already in the ground -- then hyping the deployment to make it appear much broader than it actually is.

Frontier appears to have skipped the press release portion of "fiber to the press release" and just started offering the $220 a month service under the FiberHome brand in very select parts of Durham. There's no formal announcement (though I'm sure it's coming), and the only reference to Frontier FiberHome is in the Durham News and Observer, which notes that interest appears to have been minimal:
quote:
Several thousand Durham homes and businesses became the first in the Triangle to connect to ultra-fast 1 gigabit Internet speeds Thursday with the introduction of the $219.99-a-month service by Frontier Communications. As of Thursday no customers signed up for the top speed, said Dennis Bloss, Frontier’s vice-president and general manager for North Carolina operations. Two customers – one residential, one business – opted for the 1/2 gigabit options, Bloss said.
It's unclear if Frontier will offer any of the FiOS customers acquired from Verizon 1 Gbps speeds, though if you're on aging Frontier DSL you shouldn't hold your breath on waiting for FiberHome to reach your neck of the woods.
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SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT

SimbaSeven

Member

Caps?

I wonder how fast you'll hit the cap, and how much they charge for overages.

This also proves that, with a kick in the ass, providers can provide GbE access.

KennyWest
@98.28.97.x

KennyWest

Anon

Re: Caps?

FTR doesn't cap their services.

josephf
join:2009-04-26

josephf

Member

FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

We've been reading here forever that Frontier is slowly killing their FiOS service they inherited from Verizon and pushing their FiOS customers to their retrograde DSL. If so, why would they then be going a step ahead of FiOS by offering an even higher level of bandwidth?

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

Karl Bode

News Guy

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

They were largely focused on pushing FiOS users off of TV, since they lacked the leverage to negotiate decent TV rates. The 1 Gbps stuff is only a few development communities where all the infrastructure was already in place anyway. Just not clear if their FiOS users would see the boost; depends on how much it costs them.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72

Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

interest is minimal at $220 a month, but its a start. Frontier isn't really awash in cash after Verizon unloaded their debt onto them.

I'm not sure I totally buy the TV is expensive thing, because there are exchanges for smaller cable companies, but support/etc for an ancillary tech is expensive and maybe they didn't believe that is a core tech... Sure bulk rates would have gone up, but I'm not sure they even tried...

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

Karl Bode

News Guy

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

Well keep in mind a lot of those smaller cable companies you reference are getting out of TV too. With retrans hikes out of control and the landscape dominated by giants (about to get bigger), some are hightailing it and I can't say I blame them.

KennyWest
@98.28.97.x

KennyWest

Anon

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

And Munis will be next on getting rid of TV, which will then show that these "competitive" cities that bring in more business and residents won't have anything but a crappy fiber network that they're unable to pay for. They'll sell it off.

F100
join:2013-01-15
Durham, NC
Alcatel-Lucent G-010G-A
(Software) pfSense
Pace 5268AC

F100 to Karl Bode

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to Karl Bode
As Karl says, all these sites listed in Durham are new developments where fiber was deployed from the beginning. And some like the American Tobacco Campus have other fiber providers as well for internet access. Heck, even Duke University has part if it's IT department in the Tobacco Campus wired directly to NCREN, probably with 10 gig service. Why does Frontier think people in these areas want their service? People already have it with TWC or some other provider.

Come to my neighborhood that was built in the late 70's and early 80's. There is a remote CO less than a mile down the road, fiber on all the roads leading into the neighborhood, and a large city high school a half mile away. The backhaul is all around but only copper is run past the houses. And all our pedestals are in the back yards, not the front. Looks much nicer that newer homes with not utilities on the street side of the house but will be much more difficult to service.

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

Whats weird is that Frontier in W.VA is still putting copper in the ground, even in new subdivisions. One very nice new subdivision near the northern virginia border has new copper and a Lucent lawn fridge in the center...does not make much sense to spend money on already obsolete tech.

I heard that each region of Frontier largely does what it wants - its up to regional managers on what to build and how to build it.
coryw
join:2013-12-22
Flagstaff, AZ

coryw

Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

This is pretty much totally true, and I think it goes down to the city and neighborhood level. Part of it is that they're trying to find the "best" possible technology to deploy for any given customer or area, and part of it is that they have (at least in Citizens Communications areas) engineers in each city doing localized planning and engineering.

rtfm
join:2005-07-09
Washington, DC

rtfm to Zenit_IIfx

Member

to Zenit_IIfx
said by Zenit_IIfx:

Whats weird is that Frontier in W.VA is still putting copper in the ground, even in new subdivisions. One very nice new subdivision near the northern virginia border has new copper and a Lucent lawn fridge in the center

Are the cable co's any smarter? I've yet to see anyone but Verizontal laying glass, and they have stopped.

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

VZ is still putting glass in the ground in the cases of new subdivisions. Same for AT&T in their serving areas.
It looks like all FTTP construction has halted in VZland but they are still very slowly creeping out new fiber to fulfill franchise overbuild requirements. Its nowhere near enough though.

I can name 3 new subdivisions that are popping up in areas that had zero FIOS presence, but are getting FIOS due to VZ not wanting to build obsolete infrastructure.

Some cable companies are deploying RFoG - although not many in the USA are doing this. In Canada, RFoG has been the norm in greenfield for a long time now.
Lately Comcast's focus has been low customer to node ratio HFC builds - they are tying to avoid nodes with 100+ people in new construction.

rtfm
join:2005-07-09
Washington, DC

rtfm

Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

said by Zenit_IIfx:

Some cable companies are deploying RFoG - although not many in the USA are doing this. In Canada, RFoG has been the norm in greenfield for a long time now.

I've not heard that term before; it appears to be more like FIOS's PON than different.

I do know VZ will go to lengths to avoid laying copper. In one case, they installed FIOS to avoid replacing a 600 pair trunk cable that was mostly dead.

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

Yeah RFoG is just Cable MSO speak for their slight modification of PON. Rather than install new GPON OLT's they reuse the CMTS/Combiner arrangement of the old HFC plant with fiber distribution of PON and hang mini-nodes (not full ONT's - just coax out)on the sides of peoples homes. It essentially shrinks the coax part of the network from a few thousand feet down to the interior home/business wiring only.

FIOS GPON has an RFoG overlay just for TV, so they are actually really similar.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

RFoG still uses DOCSIS 3 and QAM for VOD. FIOS uses an IP system for VOD, and the internet is on a separate wavelength than the cable. You'd think they'd at least have a wavelength available for internet separate from the RFoG so that they could offer gigabit symmetrical internet in RFoG areas, but I guess not.

Not sure the reasoning for RFoG, since it seems a dense small-node system would be better to keep it homogenous with the rest of their system, and avoid buying and powering expensive ONT-like devices at each home. The beauty of HFCis that you just run some cheap coax and a splitter to each home.

rtfm
join:2005-07-09
Washington, DC

rtfm to Zenit_IIfx

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to Zenit_IIfx
said by Zenit_IIfx:

Lucent lawn fridge

I love that term!
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to Karl Bode

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to Karl Bode
Are they GPON or BPON? If they are GPON areas, it would just be removing the speed caps, and running Ethernet at the users' homes and maybe doing router upgrades...

If they are BPON, well, they'd have to be upgraded to GPON... BPON would be maxed out at around 250/75.

mackey
Premium Member
join:2007-08-20

mackey

Premium Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

said by BiggA:

If they are GPON areas, it would just be removing the speed caps, and running Ethernet at the users' homes

There's a lot more to it then that. GPON is 2.488/1.244 gbps shared between up to 128 users. You're going to fail miserably if you attempt to give all 128 users 1 gbps symmetrical. Even if you only have a 32-way split you're still going to run into problems if all 32 want 1 gbps.

/M
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: FiOS No, 1 Gbps Yes?

Last I knew, FIOS was doing a 32:1 split max. If you look at the oversubscription ratios of cable, and the huge amount of bandwidth FIOS has in the first place, 32 1 gig lines running off of a 2.4 gig GPON port would work just fine, with way more headroom than the cable providers have.

If it is a much more expensive plan, and there are cheaper options, they'd have to be careful to only put a couple gig customers on on GPON port, as they are likely to be pretty heavy duty users compared to regular users who aren't paying extra.

McPolygon
join:2013-11-25
Bonney Lake, WA
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD
MikroTik RB4011

McPolygon

Member

FiOS Markets & 1Gbps = Big NOPE

"It's unclear if Frontier will offer any of the FiOS customers acquired from Verizon 1 Gbps speeds"

They just started offering 100/15 service in some FiOS areas. I think its pretty clear that they will NOT offer 1Gbps in their legacy Verizon FiOS markets. There network engineers have openly admitted that they have significant congestion across the FiOS network during peak hours. They would need to up their backhaul first. There are other technological limitations like legacy MDU and BPON hardware that would need significant capital to switch out to offer these speeds. Also, there is a very old cultural fear that if they offer these speeds it will cut into their up market business propositions.

tshirt
Premium Member
join:2004-07-11
Snohomish, WA

tshirt

Premium Member

Re: FiOS Markets & 1Gbps = Big NOPE

One of the things that kills FiOS adoption here, is the lack of a trial period or no contract option (I understand the install/ont is expensive and they NEED commitment for RoI)
My brother (installed the next to last day of Verizon) had a lot of trouble the first year ,but by the end of his 2 year commit it was working pretty well.
But I now see a lot of complaints about service out of the North Bothell, WA CO about congestion and latency problems and a speed price ratio that leaves Comcast as a better choice
BlueC
join:2009-11-26
Minneapolis, MN

BlueC

Member

Re: FiOS Markets & 1Gbps = Big NOPE

I believe CenturyLink also requires a minimum 12mo contract on their GPON service. It will be interesting to see how that affects their take-rate.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080 to McPolygon

Member

to McPolygon
Verizon is burying more fiber around here as of late.. but we are now into 2015 and not a peep about faster speeds so far..
chris92
join:2008-09-20
Coal Valley, IL

chris92

Member

"As of Thursday no customers signed up for the top speed"

Hilarious.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

IIRC

Wasn't this area was the same area that the muni was in a fight with Verizon over deployment in (2004-2009ish).. and there was lots of monies spent defending this geography from first muni deployment, and then competitors from building anything new... only to have the geography sold off to a weak company massively disadvantaged by Verizon's offloaded debts.

Later on, it became a political liability to defend protectionist schemes and laws disabling real competition--leading to these events. At least one city was on the Google fiber list.. not sure if it was this one.

why60loss
Premium Member
join:2012-09-20

1 edit

1 recommendation

why60loss

Premium Member

Just wow

Time warner cable, AT&T and century link were beaten to 1Gb's by frontier in NC.

No more needs to be said.

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Re: Just wow

As well as Verizon and Comcast as well.

But Frontier has other problems that really make this PR release pure propaganda.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to why60loss

Member

to why60loss
I thought Century Link offers 1GB service too.

Funny the worst companies are offering 1 Gig service.
coryw
join:2013-12-22
Flagstaff, AZ

coryw to why60loss

Member

to why60loss
CenturyLink has gigabit deployed in two cities, to more neighborhoods than this announcement covers. AT&T also has gigabit lit up and actually has more than "zero" customers in at least one market.

Plus, although I don't know what the timeline is, CL is apparently getting ready to make gigabit available in a few more markets.
54761437 (banned)
join:2013-01-18
Durham, NC

54761437 (banned)

Member

Fear of Google

I live in Durham, about 3 miles away from the American Tobacco Campus where they turned on 1Gbit business service. I'm not exactly hopeful that Frontier is going to bring us fiber in the Watts-Hillandale neighborhood, even though we *are* so close to one of their initial deployments. If they can offer something like symmetrical 100Mbit for $60 a month, I'd be interested, but I'm not paying $220 for gigabit. I think the whole thing is designed to beat Google to the punch in case they actually do pick Durham as one of their new fiber metro areas. If ever there were a case of fiber to the press release, this is it.
Bob61571
join:2008-08-08
Washington, IL

Bob61571

Member

Re: Fear of Google

From article: "The company’s 1 gig service is currently limited to American Tobacco Campus, Carolina Arbors, Durham City Center, Research Triangle Park’s Park Center Development, One Park Center and Jordan at Southport, Frontier said in its announcement."

All of the above locations sound like they are either 1)Business Parks OR 2)Multi Unit apartment complexes .

Is that correct? If so, that sounds like Frontier is trying to stay away from a typical suburban subdivision.
54761437 (banned)
join:2013-01-18
Durham, NC

54761437 (banned)

Member

Re: Fear of Google

said by Bob61571:

From article: "The company’s 1 gig service is currently limited to American Tobacco Campus, Carolina Arbors, Durham City Center, Research Triangle Park’s Park Center Development, One Park Center and Jordan at Southport, Frontier said in its announcement."

All of the above locations sound like they are either 1)Business Parks OR 2)Multi Unit apartment complexes .

Is that correct? If so, that sounds like Frontier is trying to stay away from a typical suburban subdivision.

American Tobacco is indeed a small business park in downtown Durham. There are MDUs nearby, but no residential houses in the immediate vicinity. Carolina Arbors is a freaking RETIREMENT COMMUNITY, so I doubt many people there will be signing up to pay $220 for gigabit. Durham City Center is another business/government area in downtown Durham. The Park Center Development at RTP is a new building with Frontier's branding on it (RTP is a large business park). Jordan at Southpoint is a new development in southeast Durham (no MDUs).

KennyWest
@98.28.97.x

KennyWest to 54761437

Anon

to 54761437
Hardly afraid of Google. They know Google isn't going to expand anytime soon. They're behind in Austin and even the other cities they have contracts to service aren't even started let alone anything being done. GF is a joke and the public bought into it.
54761437 (banned)
join:2013-01-18
Durham, NC

54761437 (banned)

Member

Re: Fear of Google

said by KennyWest :

Hardly afraid of Google. They know Google isn't going to expand anytime soon. They're behind in Austin and even the other cities they have contracts to service aren't even started let alone anything being done. GF is a joke and the public bought into it.

Notice I said "if" Google picks Raleigh/Durham as one of its new markets. The only joke in this country are telcos who try to convince the FCC 4Mbit is broadband while they give their own copper lines the trashbag treatment.
crooked
join:2000-07-29
Durham, NC

crooked

Member

Testimonial

Employee at [what I assume to be] the single company that signed up for the new fiber service. We're on the American Tobacco Campus. I was told we were contracted for 150/150, but the speed test I saw when helping switch over from our 20/20 was around 510 down, 175 up via speedtest.net.

I haven't had a chance to plug in and do a speed test myself since there is no ethernet drop at my desk, but over 802.11n, I've been routinely seeing speeds over 200mbit down. Only test I have the url for isn't quite as fast, but still pretty quick: »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 4601.png

The article that was on WRAL(link) mentioned that they weren't planning on cherry picking areas -- although I'm not sure if this meant within the city of Durham or within their whole coverage area.

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