Ting Internet unveiled plans to expand its network in Colorado to more than 100,000 new locations in the city of Aurora, adding to previously announced projects in Colorado Springs and Durango.
The build will be Ting’s largest to date, covering a total of more than 130,000 serviceable addresses. Though it expects to pass a larger number of locations – 200,000 – in Colorado Springs, that network is being built by its partner Colorado Springs Utilities. The company has also been serving the city of Centennial in the state since 2016 and announced a full-city build in Durango in February.
Jill Szuchmacher, Ting Internet’s EVP, told Fierce the project in Aurora is “a big step and a big investment” for the company, particularly with regard to its ambitions in Colorado, but one it’s excited to make. Once all its work in the state is complete, its footprint there will span around 400,000 addresses, she said.
“It’s a big project, so it’ll take a number of years,” Szuchmacher said of the Aurora build. “We’ve got a lot of engineering work ahead of us to complete and we’re of course working with the city to make sure that we can go as quickly as possible and minimize the disruption to residents and businesses.” Construction is set to begin this summer, with the first customers expected to be onboarded by the end of 2022.
While she declined to specify what fiber technology it is using for the project, Szuchmacher stated its infrastructure will be “future-proofed not just for the speeds customers might want to use today, but for the increasing bandwidth we all expect to be needed in the next 5, 10 years and beyond.”
Ting Internet, which is owned by Tucows, began offering fiber services in 2015. Beyond Colorado, it serves cities in California, Idaho, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. As in its other markets, Szuchmacher said the company will be up against a cable incumbent and a telco incumbent in Aurora but expects to be the first full-city fiber-to-the-home provider there.
At the end of Q4 2021, Ting Internet had 25,500 subscribers and 85,500 passings. During its most recent earnings call, Tucows CEO Elliot Noss said it plans to ramp its Ting Internet expansion in 2022 and 2023, with capex investments expected to climb accordingly.