Brightspeed revealed on Tuesday it has launched gigabit fiber service in six states, a move that comes as the operator aims to reach 1 million passings by the end of 2023.
Service is now live for homes and businesses across parts of Alabama, Indiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A Brightspeed spokesperson told Fierce the company is “currently serving a number of wire centers across our first six states, and will continue to expand each month.”
North Carolina, where Brightspeed is headquartered, was the company’s first announced fiber build market last year. Brightspeed is targeting 300,000 new fiber locations in the state by year-end, and the spokesperson noted Brightspeed remains on track to achieve that goal.
In addition to the above markets, Brightspeed is undertaking fiber projects in states such as Louisiana, Missouri and Ohio. Thus far, its build plans span 17 states.
Asked when Brightspeed expects to turn up fiber service in other states, the representative said it’s “actively building in wire centers in Missouri, Ohio and Texas, as well as in several other states,” with more addresses coming online each week.
The launch of Brightspeed’s fiber network comes six months after the ISP closed a $7.5 billion deal to buy Lumen Technologies’ ILEC assets in 20 states, becoming the country’s fifth largest ILEC. Brightspeed’s acquired territory includes more than 6.5 million locations across the Midwest and Eastern U.S. Though most of that footprint is served with copper, Brightspeed is looking to spend $2 billion to build out fiber to at least 3 million locations in the next five years.
“We’ve all learned firsthand the incredible impact faster internet service can have in enabling families and businesses to reliably work, study, stream, connect and play,” said Brightspeed CEO Bob Mudge in a statement. “Through the launch of our new Brightspeed Fiber network, we are investing in the technology to fuel those important connections. We hit the ground running as a company with this first phase of deployment and we are confident this is only the beginning of what is possible for our customers and for Brightspeed."
Speaking with Fierce in October, Mudge said Brightspeed will offer symmetrical fiber speeds of 200 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps or 2 Gbps, once fiber is available in each market.
Asked if Brightspeed has seen an uptake in customers choosing the faster speeds, the representative said, “Brightspeed’s state-of-the-art network leverages the latest XGS-PON technology capable of delivering multi-gig internet service to homes and businesses. We are continuing to ramp our set of service offerings to take full advantage of this capability and are encouraged by our early results and that our customers are opting for faster speeds."