- Brightspeed is teaming up with Verizon to launch fixed wireless access (FWA) for its copper customers
- Verizon will supply data services, however users won’t be tied to a single carrier for voice capabilities
- Maintaining copper is expensive and fiber may not reach everyone
If you know anything about Brightspeed, it’s been all about building fiber broadband. However, the operator must still contend with the sizable ILEC copper footprint it acquired from Lumen and figure out how to connect the customers who might have to wait years to get fiber – if at all.
To that end, Brightspeed is working toward the launch of a new fixed wireless access (FWA) service, which it announced in January in partnership with Verizon. Plans to use wireless as a copper replacement have been in the works since September, though at the time there was no mention of using Verizon for fixed wireless deployments.
Brightspeed CEO Tom Maguire, who’s notably a Verizon vet, told Fierce there are three different types of copper customers. Those who have fiber available in their area, in which case transitioning them off copper is “a no brainer.” There are copper customers who will have access to fiber in the future, but there's also the “fiber maybe” crowd. That’s who he is concerned about. And that's where wireless technology comes into play.
Maguire said Verizon years ago created a device called Voice Link, which used a wireless signal to emulate a dial tone. Voice Link came with a battery backup, so customers could use it when the copper network was down. The device supported copper-based Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), but did not offer internet data.
Of course, that just won’t fly in this day and age.
So, Brightspeed set out to find an alternative. Specifically, it wanted to create a copper replacement with both voice and data capabilities, not unlike AT&T’s Phone Advanced, which is basically a wireless-based landline phone replacement.
There was just one problem: Brightspeed doesn’t have its own mobile network. Enter Verizon.
Simply put, the new FWA product is a 4G device with global eSIM capabilities, Brightspeed CTO Brian Bond told Fierce. Verizon will supply the internet data, but users won’t be tied to a single carrier for phone and voice capabilities.
When a customer boots up the device, it may default to one provider’s network, say AT&T’s. But depending on the area, “it might say AT&T doesn’t really have a great signal, it will try other carrier network[s] and then it’ll lock on the best one,” said Bond.
Brightspeed also created an analog telephone adapter (ATA), which allows Brightspeed to “create that dial-tone like experience” for customers who want that. If a customer has a power outage, voice services will still work even if internet data is unavailable.
The FWA service is still in its pilot phase, but Brightspeed is aiming for general availability in the next couple of months. Thus far, Brightspeed is just offering voice services to a limited number of customers, but it is undertaking network upgrades so it can pair data with voice sometime in Q2 2025.
Copper retirement is on the front burner
Brightspeed’s foray into fixed wireless comes as the new presidential administration is poised to tone down the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program’s fiber preference. Amid the BEAD uncertainty, operators must grapple with their legacy copper networks.
New NTIA leadership is bound to make changes to the program to allow more room for alternative technologies. That means BEAD isn’t a sure thing right now, Maguire said. And pending changes aside, providers are just not guaranteed to win all their BEAD applications. “It’s never going to work that way,” he said.
Mike Wendy, communications director at WISPA, is all for the type of copper replacement Brightspeed is offering.
“Brightspeed may even find their fiber plans aren’t needed after they see what they can do with FWA and hear how happy their existing and new customers are with it,” he said. “In fact, I think this is the most likely outcome when the switch is made.”
As for other non-wireless providers who are exploring FWA, Wendy mentioned Midco is “a big proponent” of the technology despite having an extensive cable footprint. “I think they either use FWA to extend their cable plant footprint or to quickly compete in new areas adjacent to their cable plant,” he said.
Brightspeed seems to be charting a course like AT&T’s to shed its copper network, said Wave7 Research principal Jeff Moore. Not only does AT&T have its Internet Air FWA product to connect customers not served by fiber, it’s also been doubling down on its copper retirement strategy (despite some speedbumps).
The difference here is Brightspeed “needs to partner with Verizon to make this happen,” Moore said. Interestingly, much of Brightspeed’s service area falls under Sprint’s legacy footprint, he added.
For Brightspeed’s part, Maguire said he is “pretty passionate” about copper retirement. And for good reason, given Brightspeed and other telcos are plagued with the cost of copper maintenance, cable theft and regulations on when it can and can’t switch off its copper network.
But the regulatory front is poised to shift, especially with Brendan Carr now at the helm of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
“We’re in a much different world…just with the attitudes of people in terms of accepting alternative technologies,” said Maguire.
Carr has been a proponent of using satellite and other technologies over fiber for the BEAD program, though he’s not directly involved with BEAD. He does have influence over copper retirement regs for carriers, as New Street Research has noted. But thus far, he hasn’t indicated any policy changes in that area.
Maguire remains optimistic that Brightspeed can cut down the cost to maintain copper for a “dwindling” number of customers.
“We’re really on the cusp of being able to do something that’s going to significantly change the infrastructure in telecom – and in the entire country – for the better,” he concluded.