DIDs FEATURED ARTICLE

For some time now, Frontier Communications has been making advancements in places where formerly there was only Verizon (News - Alert). Frontier has worked aggressively to bring new services and new value to these regions, and now, there's one more region that's likely to benefit from Frontier's advancement. The Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC) recently approved the transfer of Verizon Southwest's competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) certificate to Frontier, allowing the company to start taking over that business and advancing it accordingly.

In Texas, the handing over of the CLEC, reports note, is the only regulatory approval the state can really offer, and comes on the heels of similar moves seen in California and Florida. Similar measures were also approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC (News - Alert)), showing Frontier's advancement potential in the region.

Reports suggest that Frontier plans to offer up its full slate of services, ranging from the standard Internet service provider fare like broadband access, local and long distance phone service and video options to some somewhat more unusual options like the Frontier Secure security option. Those now-former Verizon customers who receive FiOS (News - Alert), meanwhile, will still be able to get the service and under the FiOS brand name. Frontier is also committed to bringing broadband access to a further 750,000 households at speeds ranging in the 25Mbps range, not just in Texas, but across the entire 28-state region Frontier serves, by the closing days of 2020.

This, meanwhile, poses an exciting opportunity for a direct inward dialing (DID) service like Vitcom to step in with the new provider and offer up a block of telephone numbers. While admittedly, many of Frontier's imminent customers already have phone numbers, there are always people moving or changing numbers for one reason or another, or even adding lines, and the move from Verizon to Frontier could be a big opportunity for Vitcom if it tries to step in. Additionally, this will likely prove a very welcome addition to the communications lineup, particularly in underserved rural areas. Frontier has made it a point to bring at least some breed of high-speed Internet access to users, and considering that for many of those users it was satellite or nothing, Frontier's breed of limitless—if somewhat slow—high-speed access will likely prove abundantly welcome. Frontier even recently demonstrated this firsthand with a new promotional offer in which it offered new customers a free year of Amazon Prime access, showing just what that high-speed Internet access can really do for its users.

Increased competition in the ISP field isn't a bad thing at all, particularly in an environment where individual cities are considering adding municipal fiber options to help drive business. Frontier's move in the South should be a welcome one, and put just a little more spark in a field that could sorely use such movement.