Heading toward a new Frontier: Fifth-largest U.S. long-distance carrier streamlines for growth

Two months after becoming president and chief executive officer of Frontier Corp., Joseph P. Clayton announced last week that the 100-year-old carrier is laying off more than 700 workers and starting a massive restructuring.

Most notably, the company will phase out low-margin offerings such as the Budget Call rate plan and sell its $18 million per quarter prepaid calling card division, said a spokesman. The changes are aimed at focusing on the company's core businesses: reselling, local exchange service, and combined local and long-distance service.

"Product lines that distract from our core business and inefficiently utilize our resources can no longer be part of our business portfolio," Clayton said.

Most of the jobs cut from the Rochester, N.Y.-based carrier's 8400-member work force are contractors and part-time workers, the spokesman said.

"We'll bring in more salespeople, while at the same time we've reduced the layers of sales management," he said. "We are also consolidating our long-distance and local operations and bringing on more software engineers to speed up the development of frame relay, virtual private networks and dedicated Internet access."

Clayton, who joined the company in June and took the top position in August when the late Ronald J. Bittner fell ill, said the revamping is painful but necessary.

"Today, we begin fast and focused implementation of that plan, which calls for a new Frontier spirit that embodies a market-driven, customer-focused, highly profitable telecom company," he said.