Growing pains: Frontier has big plans for its local service in 1998

Frontier Corp. is ending the year on a positive note, offering local service in five new states and turning up key parts of its fiber optic network.

The Rochester, N.Y.-based reseller is the fifth-largest long-distance carrier. Jerry Carr, president of Frontier operations, estimated last week that the company also would offer local service in 15 states by the end of 1997 and in 35 states by the end of 1998, making it the third-largest provider of local service to businesses in the U.S.

Also by the end of next year, Frontier plans to move 85% of its traffic onto its fiber optic Sonet network, which it purchased from Qwest Communications International. Customers from Dallas to Houston and from Los Angeles to San Francisco are already on the network. This month, the section of the network extending from Kansas City, Mo., to Columbus, Ohio, will be ready for service, said a Frontier spokesman.

"This has been a major undertaking, and we're halfway across the U.S.," the spokesman said. "And slightly ahead of schedule, at that."

"The multiring, self-healing, Sonet architecture means virtually uninterrupted service. Even if a fiber is cut, traffic will be rerouted in milliseconds, imperceptible to the customer," said Robert Barrett, president of Frontier's technology group.

Through its resale arrangements, facilities-based competitive local exchange carrier operations and Frontier subsidiaries, the company now handles more than 1 million local access lines. Frontier has no plans to get into the residential business, the spokesman said.

"Our target customer is the business with 1000 employees or less, and that is where we have an edge," said the spokesman. "Residential is not a niche we want to be in. We're not going to play that game-we're too small."

1. New York

2. Illinois

3. Massachusetts

4. California

5. Michigan

6. Ohio

7. Wisconsin