Frontier is extending broadband to unserved residents in 25 counties throughout Ohio, leveraging funding from the FCC’s Connect America Fund Phase II (CAF-II) broadband expansion program.
Similar to recent deployments Frontier conducted in other parts of its territory, the service provider’s deployment in Ohio leverages a mix of its own capital and CAF-II funds.
Upon completion, this latest build will bring broadband service to 12,600 CAF-eligible households while improving speeds to an additional 33,600 households.
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As part of this rollout plan, Frontier will offer simplified broadband offerings and bundled service packages that provide customers with choice and affordable options are also available. Depending on the distance from Frontier's nearest central office (CO) or remote terminal (RT) facilities, consumers will be able to get speeds as fast as 45 Mbps.
Ohio counties with significant CAF upgrades include Noble, Carroll, Brown and Guernsey, with more than 25% of total households seeing improvements over the time period.
But Ohio is just one of many areas where Frontier is upgrading its network infrastructure to extend broadband service to underserved communities. The service provider recently made similar pledges to enhance broadband availability via CAF-II to rural areas of North and South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Being its biggest operating area, West Virginia is seeing the largest amount of network upgrades. Frontier is bringing broadband to 16,900 CAF-eligible households while improving speeds to an additional 117,000 households in the state.
In 2015, Frontier accepted $283 million in annual CAF-II support from the FCC that will enable it to build out broadband service to over 650,000 rural locations that it could not economically reach before.
Later, Verizon revealed in an FCC filing that it conditionally accepted the CAF-II offer of $32 million in California and a $17 million annual amount in Texas prior to selling its assets in these states to Frontier. Verizon set aside CAF-II funds in California, Texas and Florida.