As the curtain begins to rise on the prospect of $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) deployments, many are looking ahead to see what the historic investment will mean for broadband expansion.
But before we turn our gaze toward the future, let's pause and reflect on the fiber milestones achieved thus far.
This month, Fierce Telecom connected with a few of the industry's leading fiber builders to round up the expansion progress they made in 2023. Here’s what they told us:
AT&T Fiber
A November analysis from New Street Research revealed that the telecom industry collectively increased fiber locations by 1.8 million in the third quarter of this year, with “most of the increase driven by AT&T.” As of the third quarter, AT&T’s fiber was available to 20.7 million consumer and about 3.3 million business customer locations.
A representative told Fierce Telecom that AT&T is penetrating markets faster than it had initially anticipated when deploying fiber. In Q3, the provider added 296,000 fiber customers, representing its fifteenth straight quarter with more than 200,000 net fiber adds. During that time, it surpassed 8 million AT&T Fiber subscribers – meaning it doubled its customer base in less than 4 years.
Much of what AT&T built in 2023 is already in service, the rep added, and the company expects to “maintain that momentum into 2024 and beyond.” AT&T is on track to pass 30 million-plus consumer and business locations within its existing wireline footprint by the end of 2025.
TDS Telecom
In the third quarter, TDS raised its 2023 fiber service address goal to 200,000, up from 175,000. The company is targeting 1.2 million marketable fiber service addresses by 2026 and ended the 2023 third quarter with 709,000.
Michelle Brukwicki, TDS Telecom CFO told Fierce the company “will continue in many markets for the next few years.”
TDS expects to receive $90 million each year for the next 15 years through the Enhanced A-CAM offer made by the FCC in September. TDS’ ILEC markets are currently 40% fiber, and Brukwicki said the A-CAM program will help bring faster speeds to even more locations in those ILEC areas.
Next year TDS Telecom plans to slow its spending and focus on driving broadband penetration and revenues in new fiber markets. The company expects 2024 service addresses to be closer to what was delivered in 2022, as Brukwicki told investors during Q3 earnings. It has three grant awards in Wisconsin, one in Tennessee and one in Maine in process for completion within the next two years.
Google Fiber
Google Fiber doesn’t share exact numbers on its fiber expansion, but disclosed that in 2023 its build increased by more than 10% over 2022 — both in terms of miles of fiber deployed and the number of homes passed.
“And that comes after seeing more than a double digit increase the year before,” a spokesperson said this month.
This year Google Fiber added markets in several states, including Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Utah and Colorado. It also debuted a symmetrical 8 Gbps broadband tier in Arizona, and executives plotted the roll out of a symmetrical 20-gig service for select residential and business customers by the end of this year.
Next year will see the company build at similar rates to 2023, in all of its current markets and in some new ones. It will launch service to customers in Nebraska, Colorado and Idaho early next year, and is in continued discussions with new states like Nevada (“and a few others,” the spokesperson added.).
Lumos
Lumos constructed approximately 1,500 miles of fiber this year. Its current passing total is over 300,000 homes and businesses, as it makes its way to a goal of passing 1 million households by 2026.
Most of its current fiber footprint is in service, and the company has approximately 80,000 addresses in active construction.
This year Lumos designated nearly $100 million to bring its network into Greenville County, South Carolina, and continued to turn up service in North Carolina. It also inked a $1.1 billion sustainability-linked infrastructure financing deal, which the company said will help fund long-term fiber rollout plans.
“We are still finalizing our construction targets for next year but will continue our rapid growth,” a Lumos spokesperson told Fierce. Lumos also has several active grant programs through the Virginia VATI program, North Carolina's GREAT grants and a public-private partnership with Orange County, North Carolina.
Lumen
For the full year 2023, Lumen expects it will have deployed a total of 500,000 or more fiber-enabled locations, including residential and small business locations through the company’s Mass Markets segment.
“As we look ahead, we plan to continue this healthy deployment pace while prioritizing sales and marketing investments to drive Quantum Fiber subscriber growth,” said a spokesperson.
Lumen plans to continue its current annual deployment of 500,000 or more fiber enabled locations in 2024.
“We will look at government funding programs such as BEAD and other public-private partnerships in any market where it makes sense for Lumen and Quantum Fiber,” added the spokesperson. However, its 500,000 or more passings does not include any incremental contribution from those outside funding sources.
Despite “revenue headwinds” driven by nearly $20 billion in debt, Lumen this year bagged a $110 million contract with the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to operate and maintain the agency’s fiber backbone.
GoNetspeed
This year GoNetspeed launched service to more than 26 communities throughout its footprint. The fiber provider accelerated builds in the second half of 2023, with the expectation that this calendar year it will pass more than 140,000 locations
“We're building at the highest pace we've ever built. And we've only been in existence for just over 30 months,” GoNetspeed President and CEO Richard Clark told Fierce Telecom in November.
In the coming months, the privately-funded company will be bringing service to communities throughout Maine, Connecticut and New York, a representative told Fierce, and it “hopes to see more progress in Massachusetts.”
“We are actively building in numerous communities throughout our footprint and look forward to introducing multi-gigabit speeds in the coming months,” said the rep, adding, “Since we are a privately-owned and funded company, we are able to use our own funds to build quickly without needing funding from the city/state.”
UTOPIA
As one of the largest municipal-owned networks in the U.S., UTOPIA built 448.5 miles (overhead and underground) in Utah this year, for a total of 23,069 homes passed in the state.
The company wrapped up builds in Pleasant Grove and Syracuse, Utah this year.
Most of UTOPIA’s fiber is already in service. They are actively building in the cities of Bountiful and West Haven, but nothing is lit there yet. Bountiful is approaching the completion of its first footprint, and West Haven will be complete in 2024.
As of the end of November 2023, UTOPIA was seeing take rates ranging from around 41% to nearly 66% in some cities, a representative told Fierce Telecom.
WOW!
As of September, the close of its third quarter, WOW!’s all-fiber network had passed a total of 14,100 greenfield homes in Central Florida (a “key market” for the company.)
While the company doesn’t report publicly on active construction, a spokesperson said that by the end of Q3, it had invested more than $71 million in building its all-fiber network in its greenfield markets.
During the third quarter it announced three new markets, including the opportunity to pass 80,000 new homes in Michigan, 85,000 new homes in Minnesota and 44,000 new homes in Hernando County, Florida. Including its current greenfield markets in central Florida and South Carolina, WOW! expects to hit a target of 400,000 new homes by the end of 2027.
Despite shaky third and fourth quarter results this year, CEO Teresa Elder told investors during Q3 earnings that she is "confident" WOW!'s expansion initiatives and broadband-first strategy will result in improved financial and customer results in 2024.