Frontier is now Dish Network’s biggest customer

, revealed Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter on an investor conference call to announce the company’s second quarter earnings. Dish Network signed a multiyear renewal of its reseller deal with Frontier , extending the agreement to include 13 states the rural telco acquired from Verizon Communications where it previously offered DirecTV. Overall, Frontier has operations in 27 states and approximately 14,900 employees. As of June 30, the company had 3.25 million residential customers and 326,800 business customers.

Wilderotter was enthusiastic about a new IP-capable set-top box from Dish Network. “With a wireless modem, [we] can do IP video to the TV set,” said Wilderotter, adding that the company envisions a “Frontier channel” on the TV set. “And by using Fring, [customers] will be able to take video anywhere to any device,” she said. Often Dish Network is 20% less costly than other options in a market, Wilderotter said. She also noted that the Dish partnership with Blockbuster will “continue to move forward with other capabilities we can leverage.”