Frontier

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by: Melissa deCordova

In a constant effort to maintain a dial tone, The Weather Channel is always on the television at Frontier’s Plant Service Center in Sherburne. Even if they can’t prevent winds, floods or ice storms from downing towers and cutting cables, technicians want to be on the scene beforehand in order to make sure their customers can always call out.

According to Vice President Jim Currie, who oversees the Sherburne service center while holding the fort down at Frontier’s operations in Norwich, the company has earmarked a good portion of $15 million since 2005 for infrastructure upkeep.

“It’s pretty amazing what nature can do,” the 39-year telephone industry veteran said. “It constantly affects our business.”

Frontier’s telephone service was interrupted in Chenango County just once last year due to deadly floods near Roscoe in June. The high waters were blamed for four deaths after washing out a bridge and a section of state Route 206.

“Although our technicians had difficulty even getting to downed fiber and copper cables, they were dedicated and determined to restore telephone service to the area,” Communications Director Karen Miller said.

Frontier is the brand name of Citizens Communications Company, one of the nation’s largest rural local exchange carriers. Based in Stamford, Conn., it provides residential and business subscribers in 24 states with local and long-distance telephone service, Internet access, wireless Internet data access, digital phone and DISH satellite TV. Frontier reaches into primarily rural and suburban areas.

The company employs a total of 200 in Chenango County, representing a $9 million payroll. It has offices in Greene, Norwich, Sherburne and New Berlin and pays approximately $1 million in property taxes every year.

Technicians from Sherburne’s 24-hour services center are regularly dispatched to repair towers and cables in Chenango, Delaware, Sullivan, Tioga, Cortland, Madison and Otsego counties. Frontier’s Internet operations center is located in Rochester and switches and network elements are monitored from its office in Johnstown.

About 89 percent of Frontier’s customers in Chenango County currently have high speed Internet service, but Currie said the company aims “to push the envelope” into areas that have none.

“The Governor is concerned that rural people have access to the Internet. We want to do our part to increase the percentage of our customers who already do,” he said.

The year 2007 was a stellar one for Frontier. The company continued to increase revenues and successfully release new calling plans, options and services. The telephone industry has come a long way from being a quasi governmental agency back in the heyday of Ma Bell in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Since the forced breakup in 1986, the industry has many independent and competitive players.

Currie said Frontier’s performance is a testament to its leadership. “Our CEO Maggie WildeRotter has breathed such a spark of rebirth into our employees and the way we take a look at this business,” he said. About 60 managers recently attended a revitalizing retreat in Arizona where Currie and Miller said much emphasis was placed on staying focused, and taking advantage of the products and data the company sells in order to better serve its customers.

“We continue to provide the types of service that people expect. Our reputation is being able to serve them when everything else is falling down. We put the customer first; that’s the mantra we follow,” Miller said. (Though she represents the company’s marketing communications efforts in all of its regions, Miller’s parents live in Afton. “Norwich and Sherburne are very much like home for me,” she said. Currie also calls Norwich his home.)

A new service recently introduced, “Piece of Mind,” helps Frontier’s customers with technical questions, even if they have nothing to do with their telephone or Internet service. For a fee, technicians can help individuals wanting to back up their computer hard drives, restore lost data or set up a wireless network at home.

“Not every person is lucky enough to have a 16-year-old around to help with these things,” Currie said. “People have their whole family albums, pictures and written history, on their hard drives, but they might not know how to keep it all safe.”

Frontier’s “Piece of Mind” technician help desk can assist customers with any network element they might want to add to their computer, or even how to set up an iPod to download music.

Also planned are “Cyber Safety Services” lectures geared toward parents and educators who want to learn how to monitor youths’ computer time and content. Lecture dates will be advertised in the near future.

“Parents may have installed firewall or some other security measures on their child’s computer, but they need to know how to go in and check to make sure that it hasn’t been overridden. We need to make sure the public knows what to watch out for. Kids are savvy,” Currie said.

Perhaps most exciting on the docket for this year is making the City of Norwich wireless. Johnstown, Gloversville and Norwich became live simultaneously in late January and are the first cities in the state to do so. Frontier dedicated a $200,000 Empire State Development Group grant toward each locale’s new wireless service. The connection will be clear from Chenango Memorial Hospital on North Broad Street to McDonald’s on South Broad Street, and from the Episcopal Church on West Main Street to the Chenango County Fairgrounds on East Main Street.

“We believe that this will enhance economic activity, showing Norwich to be a progressive community that will be able to better attract business,” Currie said.

Community services not a new concept at all for Frontier. Its employees are encouraged to be active in where they reside and work. “It makes the whole, a whole lot better,” Curries said. Employees are members of the United Way, the Business Improvement District and Relay for Life boards, to name just a few.

“The people in this business ... I think they know how fortunate they are to have a great job at a better than competitive wage. They want to give back,” explained Currie.

For Chenango County, Currie said he hoped some of the government consolidation suggestions reported in The Evening Sun last year can come to fruition.

“We have a high population of senior citizens on a fixed incomes who live here. They are worried about taxes. Cost cutting or caps on taxes could help us take a look at what our current taxes are being used for. People should be able to live in their own homes for their whole lives,” he said.

Students interested in career opportunities with Frontier should receive training in Internet protocol technology. “It’s the way the world is growing,” he concluded.

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