After spending more than a year laser focused on overhauling its consumer business following its emergence from bankruptcy, it seems Frontier Communications is finally ready to expand its horizons. The operator appointed Ettienne Brandt, a former executive of U.K. operators BT and EE, as the new head of its commercial business.
As EVP of Commercial, Brandt will have oversight of Frontier’s Enterprise and Small and Medium Size Business (SMB) segments. In a statement, Frontier CEO Nick Jeffery said Brandt’s “experience building and selling fiber networks in highly competitive international markets” will help it “unlock the opportunity we have with our business customers.”
Brandt most recently served as Chief Commercial Officer at Enjoy Technology, a technology delivery and installation company with more than 2,100 employees across the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Prior to that, he served as CCO and Managing Director of Commercial within BT’s Consumer division from mid-2019 to April 2021, where he was responsible for retail sales, call center sales and e-commerce as well as a team of over 8,000 employees.
His LinkedIn profile shows Brandt also spent four years at EE between 2014 and 2018, holding a variety of positions including Corporate Marketing and Commercial Director and Managing Director for Channels and Trading. EE was acquired by BT in 2016. Earlier roles included a stint as Commercial Director at Orange UK and General Manager of Edcon’s cellular business in South Africa.
Jeffery said on Frontier’s recent earnings call the operator’s commercial business accounts for around 15% of the operator’s revenue but has been “undermanaged for many, many years.” He expressed hope that new leadership could help “turn it into an engine of growth.”
Brandt will certainly have his hands full. Frontier posted commercial revenue of $651 million in Q2, which was down 6.7% year on year from $698 million. The operator ended the quarter with 226,000 business broadband customers – down year on year from 238,000 – including 124,000 on copper connections and 102,000 on fiber.
To the extent that it can get more business customers on fiber, though, Frontier has the potential so see some upside in the business. Broadband APRU for business customers on copper lines came in at $63.00 at the end of Q2, a figure significantly lower than the business fiber ARPU of $107.19 it listed. Churn among business customers on fiber was also substantially lower than copper, coming in at 1.28% compared to 1.63% though the fiber churn figure was up a hair year on year.
Larger players in the enterprise space including AT&T and Verizon have struggled recently in the business wireline segment, thanks in part to a shift away from legacy transport and technologies like MPLS. But Jeffery noted on the earnings call that Frontier’s position in the market is quite different from such competitors.
“We're actually in the enterprise market, a very small part of the overall industry. So, in a way, we are insulated from macro industry trends because we're not the industry. We're a small part of it. We're also much less exposed to large enterprise accounts than some of our competitors,” he stated.