Frontier has a market capitalization of about $10 billion and its stock traded at about $39 per share after the market closed on Wednesday, up about 11 percent.

Verizon is reportedly in talks to buy rival Frontier Communications to expand its fiber network and better compete with AT&T and other rivals.
The Basking Ridge, N.J.-based telecom vendor plans to pay the entire sum in cash for the deal, which is expected to be announced Thursday. According Frontier calls itself the largest pure-play fiber provider in the US, according to Bloomberg
Dallas-based Frontier’s deal is likely to face scrutiny from shareholders, since Verizon paid more than $45 billion to license 5G-friendly wireless spectrum — plus billions more to use the licenses. According The deal comes as Frontier works to upgrade its aging copper landline network to fiber, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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Verizon-Frontier Deal

CRN has contacted Verizon and Frontier for comment.
In August, Frontier launched 7-giga fiber internet service across its entire fiber footprint. The vendor also reported quarterly earnings for the second quarter of 2024, including revenue of $1.48 billion, an increase of 2.1 percent year over year.
According to Frontier, the vendor added a record 388,000 fiber passings, bringing the total to 7.2 million locations connected with fiber. It also added a record 92,000 fiber broadband customers, up 18.6 percent from last year.
In 2016, Frontier paid $10.54 billion for Verizon’s assets, which included TV, landline phone, broadband Internet businesses, and the fiber-based Fios network in California, Texas, and Florida.
Marginal Filed It filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in 2020 to reduce its debt by more than $10 billion and provide “significant financial flexibility” to support continued investment in its long-term growth plans.
Frontier has a market capitalization of about $10 billion. Its stock was trading at about $39 per share after the market closed on Wednesday, up about 11 percent.
Verizon has a market capitalization of about $175 billion. Its stock was trading at about $42 a share in after-hours trading on Wednesday, down about 3 percent.
During its last quarterly earnings report in July, Verizon executives said the company saw total operating revenue of $32.8 billion, up 0.6 percent from a year earlier. A Morgan Stanley report at the time described it as “a solid quarter that was largely in line with (our) and consensus expectations.”
Frontier’s recent troubles have led to it attracting the attention of activist investor JANA Partners — whose past tech interests include Rapid7 And New Relic,
In February, JANA publicly applauded Frontier’s announcement that it would conduct a “formal and comprehensive review process of all opportunities to unlock shareholder value.”
The firm urged Frontier to conduct such a review in a public letter in December, even bringing up “a sale transaction, a strategic partnership/joint venture, and/or divestment of non-core copper” as possible outcomes. At the time, JANA pointed to “a more than 50% decline in Frontier’s stock price over the two-year period through mid-September” as a sign of Frontier’s failures.