Vyve Broadband, a cable and fiber provider operating in 16 states, recently unveiled plans to purchase Oklahoma-based Community Cable & Broadband (CCB) – a move Chief Operating Officer Andy Parrott called a “tuck-in acquisition.”
He told Fierce Oklahoma is a key market for Vyve, as it has support and infrastructure that goes throughout the state. CCB, headquartered in Skiatook, Oklahoma, serves eight “bedroom communities” around Tulsa, and Vyve serves “a lot of areas nearby.”
“We believe confidently that this acquisition will just complement our ability to serve Oklahoma and leverage our resources and talent to go and provide an even better service than what those customers are currently getting from their current providers,” said Parrott.
Vyve told Fierce last January the operator serves over 240,000 residential customers and around 18,000 commercial customers. Parrott declined to provide an updated subscriber tally, but he noted Vyve’s footprint continues to grow.
“Being a private company, I think we do keep some things close to the chest,” he said. However, Cable One, which owns 45% of Vyve Broadband, “is currently on an open call window to purchase the other 55% [stake].”
Parrott noted Vyve has a “pretty good scattering” of markets across the country, but it’s particularly focused on rural areas.
“That’s one of the things we do really well, you know, these networks were built and upgraded with private capital,” he said. “We’ve been in the rural broadband space longer than most and driving to give rural communities gigabit access.”
Parrott described Vyve’s network as a hybrid of fiber and coax. Residential speed tiers start at 105 Mbps downstream and go up to 1 Gbps, with the 1-gig tier available either through HFC or a fiber connection.
Vyve has built XGS-PON fiber networks in “nearly 30 communities” over the past couple of years. It’s working on greenfield fiber builds in other communities across Oklahoma and Texas as well as in North Carolina, near cities like Brevard, Franklin and Hendersonville.
As for how Vyve is laying fiber, Parrott said aerial deployment is “obviously our first choice” for financial purposes. However, Vyve is also laying fiber underground where it makes sense to do so.
“A lot of areas that build underground is because they don’t have access or what’s called make-ready, there’s no room on a pole available for somebody else,” he added. Vendor-wise, Vyve is working with Calix and Adtran, who are the operator’s optical hardware partners.
DOCSIS 4.0 plans
Because most of Vyve’s customers are still on the HFC network, Vyve is making mid-split upgrades in preparation for DOCSIS 4.0. The operator has already completed those upgrades “in a handful” of markets, Parrott said.
“We’ve wrapped up our upgrades to at a minimum provide gig service to nearly 100% of our customers – that upgrade is done,” he explained. “And now we’re returning and doing capacity and upload upgrades…so we have moved all of our video services off the frequencies needed for wider upload returns.”
“We’re going back market-by-market and in some locations, even node by node, to upgrade return capacities to ensure that we’re always ahead of what the customers’ needs are,” Parrott added.