Lumen on Monday revealed it expanded its Quantum Fiber availability, which touts gig and multi-gig speeds, in 18 cities.
Service is now available for more consumers in Boise, Idaho, four Florida markets (Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Naples and Orlando), Colorado Spring and Denver, Des Moines, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Omaha, Nebraska, two Arizona cities (Phoenix and Tucson), Portland, Salt Lake City and three cities in Washington state (Seattle, Spokane and Vancouver).
A Lumen rep told Fierce Quantum Fiber’s 1-gig tier has already been available in these cities, but the operator has turned up service for more homes and businesses and increased multi-gig coverage.
“We have expanded our multi-gig speed that was previously only available in Arvada, Colorado, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Puyallup, Washington, and now offer 8 gig Quantum Fiber internet to more than 110,000 residents in cities throughout Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, Utah and Washington,” said the spokesperson.
Lumen has said it’s undertaking Quantum Fiber expansion in 32 cities, which indicates the operator is still building out fiber in 14 more markets. Lumen’s multi-gig service, which offers symmetrical upload and download speeds of up to 8 Gbps, launched last August.
"Our customers love Quantum Fiber. We're excited to expand our fiber footprint with gig and multi-gig internet into these markets,” said Maxine Moreau, Lumen’s president of mass markets, in a statement. “Families and businesses are telling us that Quantum Fiber internet gives them what they need to thrive in our super-connected world and be ready for what lies ahead.”
Moreau added with each new city, Lumen is connecting “thousands [of] more people” to its service.
For 2023, Lumen has said it aims to add a total of 500,000 new passings, but the rep noted it's on track to exceed that number. Still, that’s less than the 1.5 million to 2 million range it initially expected, as the operator reduced its overall fiber build target from 12 million to 8-10 million passings.
In February, Lumen CFO Chris Stansbury said the company wants to make sure it’s not laying fiber just for the sake of it, and that Lumen “remain[s] focused on those large metros that we've talked about and that we stop being so focused on a cost per enablement.”