Pushing ahead with a video strategy that hinges on IP-powered services, Frontier Communications said it has expanded the reach of its new “Vantage TV” offering to nearly 75,000 homes in the Raleigh-Durham area.

The expansion means more video competition for incumbent providers Charter Communications (via its acquisition of Time Warner Cable) and AT&T, as well as Google Fiber, which started the service sign-up phase in the Triangle area in September.

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The News & Observer noted that the expansion covers about a third of Frontier’s North Carolina footprint.

Vantage TV is powered by the latest release of Ericsson Mediaroom, the IP video platform that Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in 2013.

RELATED: Frontier Fires Up ‘Vantage’ Brand

In Raleigh-Durham, Frontier will be delivering the service over its FTTP and fiber-to-copper networks.

Frontier, which entered the market after acquiring systems supporting about 4.8 million access lines from Verizon in 2010, said the new video service offers more than 400 channels, support for TV Everywhere (via the Frontier TV app), a multi-view feature (up to four channels at once), a whole-home DVR with 1 TB of storage, with integration of Netflix on the set-top “coming soon.”

Triple-play bundles start $64.99, and double-play packages start at $54.99, with no contract and a 24-month price lock. Frontier is also tossing in Amazon gift cards, free installation and a free DVR (for 12 months).

Frontier, which has a reorg underway in the wake of its acquisition of Verizon’s wireline operations in California, Texas and Florida in April, is moving ahead on a plan to roll Vantage TV to three markets and 150,000 homes this year.

As previously announced, Frontier has a plan to  launch IP-based video service to more than 40 markets, representing about 3 million homes, over the next three to four years.

Frontier Communications tonight adds a local sports channel to its Vantage TV lineup in Connecticut. Vantage Sports Network (channels 600 and 1600, in HD) will lead off at 10:30 p.m. with a 30-minute highlights show (Connecticut Sports Now) followed by a replay of a recent high-school football game between teams from Trumbull and Ridgefield, according to HAN Network, a content supplier to the new channel.

Programming will be overseen by Noah Finz, a former sports director at New Haven TV station WTNH, Frontier said. Statewide sports at the college and youth levels also will be on tap, aired live and on tape delay, the telco said. (For more colorm see this Westfaironline.com article.)

Frontier, based in Norwalk, bought the former AT&T telephone and U-verse video assets in Connecticut in 2014 and, this past March, rebranded the system as Vantage TV and is looking to take its Connecticut model to other markets, including via recent cable franchise applications in New York state. This will be the telco's first local sports network, it said.

Last month, Frontier held a casting call for student athletes to appear in promotional messages touting the new channel. Frontier has partnered with Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, which will host the network's studio and draw in students to participate and learn about sports broadcasting, according to HAN Network.

Local channels -- of the news and sports varieties -- are a staple of cable and telco-TV providers providing exclusive programming as a competitive differentiator. Charter Communications, for example, has more than a dozen local news channels around the country, acquired from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks (and overseen by former MSG Networks executive Michael Bair). In the New York area, Cablevision Systems for several years carried the MSG Varsity local-sports network, now an online video hub branded News 12 Varsity with exclusive content for Optimum broadband customers.