The Five Nine: Frontier’s CEO talks coming back from the brink

This week, we delve into the nitty gritty of one of the biggest turnaround stories in telecom in recent years: that of Frontier Communications.  

Frontier recently made headlines when Verizon agreed to pay $20 billion in cash to acquire the company as part of a bid to drastically expand its fiber footprint. That deal is now expected to close in Q1 of 2026. But while it’s flying high now, Frontier’s fortunes weren’t nearly as positive just a few short years ago.  

Back in April 2020, the company actually filed for bankruptcy. And while it emerged from bankruptcy a year later, CEO Nick Jeffrey had his work cut out for him righting the ship.  

We’ve all seen Frontier’s upbeat PR in recent years as its pivot to fiber revived the company’s revenue. But we wanted the details on just how big a lift the transformation was. We sat down with Jeffrey to hear more about the state of the company when he first joined, how the company navigated through transformation initiatives that fell flat and whether leadership really always knew they’d be successful. 

This podcast is written and hosted by Diana Goovaerts. It is edited by Diana Goovaerts and Matt Rickman. Liz Coyne is our executive producer. 

To learn more about the topics in this episode: 

• Here’s how Frontier used AI to revive its ailing B2B business 

https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/heres-how-frontier-used-ai-revive-its-ailing-b2b-business  

• Verizon's $20B Frontier buy is all about 'convergence, baby' 
  https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/verizon-rumored-buy-frontier-its-convergence-game  

• Frontier wants to become the ‘un-cable’ ISP 
  https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/frontier-wants-become-un-cable-isp  

• Frontier plans 495,000 new fiber passings in 2021 

https://www.fierce-network.com/operators/frontier-plans-495-000-new-fiber-passings-2021 

 

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