WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 2025 – Frontier added 133,000 fiber subscribers in the third quarter of 2025, up more than 20 percent from the same quarter last year. Dallas-based Frontier is being acquired by Verizon in a $20 billion transaction awaiting final regulatory approval.
In the quarter, Frontier built out 326,000 new fiber passings,, hitting a total of 8.8 million.
“The team absolutely crushed it – once again delivering our best quarter ever,” Frontier CEO Nick Jeffery said in a statement.
The company didn’t hold an earnings call because of the pending Verizon deal.
The fiber operator counted a total of more than 2.7 million fiber customers, for a penetration rate of about 31 percent in that footprint. As for its copper footprint, Frontier decommissioned 300,000 passings, down to a total of 6.7 million, and shed 52,000 copper broadband subscribers for a total of 550,000.
Last quarter, the company added more fiber passings at 334,000, but fewer fiber subscribers, at 126,000.
The monthly average revenue per user, or ARPU, of Frontier’s consumer fiber business was $68.59, up nearly 5 percent from the year before.
That increase “was due to customer shifts to higher broadband speeds, customers rolling off promotional pricing, and inflation-related price increases, all partially offset by increased retention activity and autopay take rates,” the company wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Frontier posted a net loss of $76 million in the quarter. The company said it had about $340 million in cash on hand, in addition to lines of credit it could draw on for short-term money.
Verizon and Frontier have been pressing California’s utility regulator to approve their merger as soon as possible, arguing Frontier doesn’t have the cash to continue its fiber buildout pace without being absorbed by the larger wireless carrier.
There’s also the fact that Justice Department approval for the deal, granted early this year, expires in February 2026. The California Public Utilities Commission said it would resolve the proceeding before then, but not this year, as the companies had asked.
There’s been some friction in the state, as Verizon committed to roll back some diversity initiatives in exchange for FCC approval of the deal. Those commitments appeared to conflict, the CPUC said, with California requirements for large telecoms to work on spending more with suppliers owned by minority groups.
Verizon has publicly been confident the deal will go through, and has told the state it can comply with both California law and its agreement with the FCC. The company reached settlement agreements to address concerns about the merger in the state, committing to affordable broadband plans, buildout milestones, and spending with small businesses.
