Frontier appears to be on a roll with its CAF II deployments, expanding broadband services in the rural areas of eight additional states in 2017.
The list of states included in this latest push in which Frontier is ahead of pace in deploying rural broadband include: Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
These states join Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington and West Virginia as having reached the 40% milestone.
RELATED: Frontier will use CAF II funding to expand broadband in acquired Verizon territories
The FCC’s program rules associated with the CAF program require companies that accepted the funds to roll out broadband to 40% of the eligible locations by the end of 2017.
On a national basis, Frontier now provides broadband to more than 331,000 and small businesses in its CAF-eligible areas, and the company has improved speeds to nearly 875,000 additional homes and businesses. The deployments reflect a combination of Frontier capital investment and resources that the FCC has made available through the CAF program.
Frontier is now marketing broadband offerings to households with new access or improved speeds. Several of the locations newly served can receive speeds of 25 Mbps and faster.
"We are piling up broadband milestones as we make a strong broadband deployment push to close out 2017," said Mark Nielsen, EVP and chief legal officer, in a release. "The combination of CAF and Frontier's investments have enabled new broadband connections that are vital to closing the digital divide."
In 2015, Frontier accepted $283 million in annual CAF II support from the FCC that it says will enable it to build out broadband service to over 650,000 rural locations that it could not economically reach before.
After completing its acquisition of Verizon's assets in California, Florida and Texas, the service provider will leverage its eligible funding from the CAF II to bring broadband services to underserved areas of California and Texas.
In California, the service provider is using $32 million in CAF II funding annually over the next six years for broadband deployment in Verizon high-cost service areas. During this six-year period, Frontier forecasts that CAF II funding could enable it to bring 10/1 Mbps broadband service to nearly 77,000 rural locations within this territory.
Likewise, in Texas, Frontier accepted $16.5 million in CAF II funding. This would allow the telco to bring broadband services to nearly 37,000 locations in high-cost areas.