"Frontier is an ideal company for us to work with in this project," said Scott C. Petersen, LodgeNet president and CEO. "We are combining the Internet competencies of one of the leaders in the digital distribution industry, with our widely-deployed, Internet-ready b-LAN® (broad band local area network) infrastructure." The advanced digital design of LodgeNet's b-LAN is installed in more than 3,400 hotels and 600,000 rooms throughout the United States, Canada and select international countries. "Adding Internet capabilities to our b-LAN systems is a straight-forward matter of integrating Internet-based platforms into our existing hotel infrastructure and connecting it to the Internet," said Petersen.
"LodgeNet is a market leader, an aggressive company with innovative products and technology," said Don Detampel, president of Frontier GlobalCenter. "As a long-time leader in information distribution, we have extensive experience hosting high volume Web sites. Frontier GlobalCenter currently handles over 54 billion hits each month for the most trafficked destinations in the Internet, such as Yahoo!, Biztravel.com and Washington Post.Newsweek Interactive. Joining forces, LodgeNet and Frontier offer an unbeatable Internet solution to the hotel industry."
"In addition to benefiting from their hosting expertise, we will be utilizing the Frontier Optronics NetworkSM, the world's most advanced optical IP network," said David M. Bankers, LodgeNet Chief Technology Officer. "This network, which will connect the hotels to the Internet, incorporates dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology, creating gigabit routes coast-to-coast. We believe speed translates into a better service for our customers-the hotels and their guests."
"The Internet services are being deployed into 12 geographically and demographically diverse sites, which will give us invaluable information on how, when and why people use Internet services within the hotel room environment," said Petersen. "On an annual basis, more than 150 million guests visit LodgeNet-served rooms. Industry statistics indicate that 95% of these guests turn on the television, more than 40% carry laptop computers and a very high percentage have been consumers of Internet-based services over the past year. By utilizing LodgeNet's SecureLANsm server technology at each hotel site, we will be able to study the Internet destination patterns of the hotel user so we can evolve our offering to better meet customer demand and maximize usage."
Frontier Communications, a unit of Frontier Corporation
[NYSE: FRO]
, is one of the leading providers of integrated communications solutions - including Internet, IP and data applications, long distance, local telephone and conferencing - to business customers nationwide. The self-healing Frontier Optronics NetworkSM provides customers with faster transmission speeds, greater bandwidth capacity and unrivaled reliability. For more information, visit the Frontier web site at www.frontiercorp.com or the Frontier GlobalCenter web site at www.globalcenter.net.
LodgeNet Entertainment Corporation (www.lodgenet.com) is a specialized communications company that serves more than 4,600 lodging properties in the United States and selected international markets. Through its proprietary b-LAN® technology, LodgeNet delivers guest pay services including on-demand movies, in-room video games, Internet access and other interactive applications, as well as digital-quality basic and premium free-to-guest programming. LodgeNet is listed on NASDAQ and trades under the symbol LNET.