Frontier says it reduced West Virginia customer complaints by 70 percent

Frontier Communications' multi-billion dollar acquisition of Verizon's landline operations in 14 states may be a fading memory, but in West Virginia the telco has made large strides in the past four years by extending broadband to 176,000 customers and driving down customer complaints by about 70 percent.

Before taking over the West Virginia lines in 2010, there were 1,446 customer service complaints. In 2013, that number dropped 68 percent to 460, the Charleston Daily Mail reports.

To gain approval of the acquisition, West Virginia's Public Service Commission mandated that Frontier had to invest $280 million to improve basic phone service quality and expand broadband availability to more homes and businesses. It also required the telco to enable 85 percent of households on the legacy Verizon network be able to get a broadband line by the end of this year.

According to the report it filed with the PSC on Jan 31, Frontier said that it has expanded broadband access to over 88 percent of the state's households.

"Frontier has invested more than $370 million in West Virginia since it acquired the Verizon markets, and our ongoing work here has resulted in dramatic improvements in broadband service availability and telephone service," said Dana Waldo, Frontier's general manager for West Virginia, in a statement.

A key element behind these improvements is the telco's network investments in fiber and Ethernet.

The service provider built a 2,600-mile metro fiber network that supports its mix of broadband, telephone and IP-based voice services. It also increased its business Ethernet reach by increasing the amount of Ethernet switches in its network from nine to 150.

For more:
- Charleston Daily Mail has this article

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