Fort Wayne carries a lot of clout within Frontier, both as one of its largest markets and as a test bed for new products and services that require the bandwidth available here, said the company's top executive Wednesday.
Maggie Wilderotter, chairman and chief executive officer of the Connecticut-based company, was at IPFW Wednesday to speak to 700 or more of the company's employees in this region. In an interview before her talk with employees, she said the company “looked at Fort Wayne as a strategic market.”
“It's large,” she said. “It has very good network capability.”
Although Frontier has operations in 27 states, the company's territory tilts strongly toward rural areas and small- and medium-sized cities. An equally important distinction for Fort Wayne is the availability of fiber-optic service to its homes and businesses. It's one of only three Frontier markets with FiOS.
“We can trial products here,” she said, and learn more about rolling out such services later in other markets as those areas gain more bandwidth.
Even though Fort Wayne has some of the best telecommunications infrastructure among Frontier markets, the company still faces the same challenge here that it has in every market: No matter how wide the bandwidth a customer enjoys, they want more.
Daniel J. McCarthy, president and chief operating officer of Frontier, said Fort Wayne customers will get another dose of “more” next year. The company is planning upgrades that will allow it to offer high-speed internet access that's about twice as fast as current speeds.
