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Verizon Communications on Wednesday took another step away from its century-old heritage as a company that provides telephone service over copper wires. It agreed to sell divisions that offer service to 4.8 million phone lines in 14 states to Frontier Communications for $3.3 billion in cash and $5.2 billion in Frontier stock.

The deal will triple the size of Frontier, a collection of rural phone companies that is based in Stamford, Conn. Verizon will wind up owning at least two-thirds of Frontier’s shares, in a tax-free spinoff.

The move allows Verizon to concentrate on its wireless business and on serving large companies. The company says that after the deal, only 15 percent of its revenue will come from residential customers. And 70 percent of those will be in neighborhoods where the company is replacing its copper wires with fiber optic cables that carry television programs, Internet service and, almost incidentally, voice calls under the FiOS brand.