Case Study: Frontier Communications achieves increased customer engagement and retention with Zimbra

Enriched Email Experience Differentiates Frontier’s Broadband Service for 2.5M Customers

Frontier Communications, a U.S. telecom serving mainly rural and small communities with phone, broadband and TV, needed to replace an aging Lazlo-based email system that lacked a modern UI, search and calendaring. They wanted a “drop-in” solution they could control and brand to differentiate their broadband offering, increase time on site and improve customer retention.

Frontier chose VMware Zimbra — an open-source, white‑labelable platform with an AJAX web client and extensible Zimlets — and migrated hundreds of thousands of mailboxes (750,000 in an initial 90-day migration, plus 250,000 via acquisition, with plans to serve more than 2.5 million mailboxes). Zimlets enabled integrated maps, TV and video links, emoticons and free Exchange sync to smartphones; combined with advertising and branding, the deployment increased portal engagement and customer retention while simplifying management and enabling future unified‑messaging and social integrations.

Frontier Communications

Guy Philosoph

VP of Marketing, Frontier Communications