Regional telco TDS Telecommunications (TDS) last week issued a press release announcing a major milestone for the company: 50Mbps service over fiber optic cable to residents of Monticello, Minnesota. The Minneapolis suburb became one of the few non-FiOS communities in the country to experience full fiber-to-the-home deployment, and subscribers will all receive a free upgrade from 25Mbps service to the new 50Mbps tier.

Even better is the price, which starts at $49.95 a month for 50Mbps fiber service without the need to buy other services.

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Should Verizon Communications (VZ) deals come with a warning label?

In the past few years, the telecommunications company has been shedding slow-growth businesses as it focuses on its wireless and FiOS businesses. While the deals have served Verizon well, they haven’t worked out as well for those acquiring the assets–at least in three cases.

Wednesday, Frontier Communications (FTR) embarked on this path. The rural telecommunications operator agreed to acquire 4.8 million access lines in 14 states from Verizon in a deal valued at $8.6 billion. Will Frontier face the same fate? Perhaps not.

“The problems with those deals had nothing to do with Verizon or how the deals were structured. The companies had operational problems after the deals closed,” a Verizon spokesman said.

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Four years ago, Verizon Communications embarked on an ambitious and expensive plan to run fiber optic cables, which can deliver ultra-fast Internet service and dozens of high-definition video channels along with old-fashioned telephone service, past 19 million homes, roughly half its territory. When it was announced, Verizon’s $23 billion planned investment in the service, called FiOS, was met by a chorus of skeptics, both on Wall Street and among rivals.

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If I see the balding guy in the Verizon commercial marching in front of the New Orleans Hard Hat Band one more time, I’m going to pull my FiOS TV cable out of the wall. But when it released financial results for the first quarter Monday, Verizon said this ad and the $99 unlimited talk plan it advertises were working well for the company. On a conference call with investors, the company said 13% of its new customers are signing up for the $99 plan, according to an account by the Associated Press. Previously, only 4% of its customers chose plans with bundles of minutes that cost $99 or more.

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