C Spire continues to expand its network in the southeast U.S., by zeroing in on Alabama’s state capital. The operator has delivered fiber to nearly 2,000 homes and more than 400 businesses in the Montgomery area, and it’s not stopping there.
A press release from this week said C Spire is “aggressively installing fiber” across Montgomery with the goal to reach nearly 3,000 homes in its next rollout phase. Those 3,000 homes would encompass 15 “fiberhoods” – one or more connected neighborhoods – in Montgomery.
A C Spire rep said the majority of those initial 2,000 passings were constructed in 2023, with the current construction phase “expected to be finished by the end of the year.”
“The next construction phase will start in January of 2024. The planning for that phase is underway now,” the rep told Fierce. “Once complete it will be presented to the city.”
The spokesperson explained Alabama is “a very focused growth market” for C Spire, as the operator is amid a three-year $500 million investment to deploy fiber infrastructure across the state.
A key element of C Spire’s expansion was its acquisition of Alabama broadband provider Troy Cablevision, which was completed in 2021. Troy Cable actually built the first fiber to Montgomery in 2013, so C Spire is using a combination of existing and new infrastructure to build fiber in the city, said the rep.
“C Spire is upgrading this infrastructure while constructing new fiber builds as well,” said the C Spire rep. “Our investments will bring additional technology options to customers — and with the current phase we will have these options available to more than 3,400 homes and businesses by the end of the year.”
Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said in a statement C Spire’s fiber network will be “a game changer for the entire River Region” and “complement our community’s unique IT assets while bolstering the economic development potential of our region.”
The C Spire rep declined to disclose the company’s overall number of homes passed, but noted service is currently live in more than 100 communities in Alabama and Mississippi as well as in “several Tennessee communities.”
In May, C Spire debuted new 2-gig and 8-gig service tiers, which are now available in Mississippi and Alabama and will gradually roll out to new Tennessee markets.