The U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration finally released a new notice of funding opportunity for the $42.5 billion federal BEAD program on June 6. Impact: As expected, the program’s fiber preference has been eliminated in favor of a more technology-neutral approach, although in this case technology neutral seems to …
BEAD Changes Throw the Entire Program into Disarray Read More »
Though less out of the blue than the Charter-Cox merger announcement on May 16, the news less than a week later that Lumen had agreed to sell its Mass Markets fiber business to AT&T still made a significant impact. Impact: After several months of negotiations, AT&T will acquire the majority of Lumen’s Mass Markets fiber …
AT&T Acquires Lumen’s Mass Markets Fiber Assets for $5.75B Read More »
Frontier continued to grow its fiber presence in 2024, adding fiber subscribers and expanding its fiber footprint while waiting for its acquisition by Verizon to close by early next year. Impact: In general, Frontier has been relatively quiet since shareholders approved the Verizon deal in November. It hasn’t held an earnings call either of the …
Fiber Propels Frontier to “Landmark” Year in 2024 Read More »
Lumen finally appears ready to move forward with a potential sale of its consumer fiber operations, according to a Reuters report that broke on December 20 and said the company has hired Goldman Sachs to gauge potential interest in Lumen’s consumer fiber assets. Impact: For now, Lumen is mostly in the exploratory phase of a …
In an update to its convergence strategy at its Dec. 3 Analyst & Investor Day, AT&T set an aggressive new goal to pass at least 50 million fiber locations by the end of 2029 while sunsetting much of its legacy copper network. Impact: The new fiber passings goal builds on AT&T’s previous deployment strategy to …
AT&T Goes Bigger with Fiber to Drive Convergence Goals Read More »
NTIA has thus far approved initial BEAD proposals from 51 states and territories, including the District of Columbia, but it’s still not clear when those states will finally get to the point where they can start distributing money to fund broadband deployments. Impact: The initial proposals include Volume I and Volume II and well as …
AT&T appears ready to make up with Nokia roughly nine months after it tossed the Finnish equipment maker to the side last year in favor of a $14 billion wireless open RAN deal with Ericsson. Impact: The new five-year agreement between AT&T and Nokia focuses on wireline fiber rather than wireless, however, and while analysts …
New Fiber Agreement Brings AT&T and Nokia Back Together Read More »
The complicated relationship between privately owned Windstream and publicly held Uniti has taken another turn, with the two companies announcing plans to reunite as one, with a focus on fiber deployments in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. Source: Uniti, Windstream Impact: The deal comes nine years after Windstream spun off Uniti in 2015 as …
Windstream and Uniti Together Again in Proposed $13.4B Merger Read More »
Frontier continues its march toward 10 million fiber locations by year-end 2025, finishing the year at sixty-five percent of the way to that goal after adding more than 1.3 million passings for the full year in 2023. Source: Frontier Q4 earnings materials Impact: Frontier reported another strong quarter related to its fiber product in Q4, …
Frontier Turns the Corner on Growth Thanks to Fiber Read More »
The fiber speed wars have started heating up again as providers eye ways to differentiate themselves with double-digit multi-gigabit speeds and once again Ziply Fiber seems to be leading the charge toward even faster fiber offerings just as cable’s DOCSIS 4.0 technology starts to take off. Impact: Just as Ziply Fiber made waves in January …
