Frontier insists it won't drop FiOS; rural telco offers bundled discounts

While Frontier Communications (Nasdaq: FTR) previously said that it isn't focused on offering customers FiOS TV through systems it acquired from Verizon (NYSE: VZ) in 2010, the company is beginning to run radio ads in local markets that tout FiOS.

"The future is bright. We're not going to disconnect or stop serving FiOS," Frontier spokesman Matt Kelley told Fort Wayne, Indiana, station WANE-TV earlier this week.

Frontier lost 10,000 FiOS TV subscribers during the third quarter. The telco bought assets from Verizon in 14 states, including systems that offer FiOS TV, for $8.6 billion in 2010. But CEO Maggie Wilderotter has said that the company wants to focus on selling telephone and high-speed Internet service.

"Our focus is not on FiOS video deployment. The costs to install, set up and market new FiOS video customers are very expensive and, in our view, uneconomical," Wilderotter, the former chief of interactive TV firm Wink Communications, said on an earnings call last May.

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