Brightspeed is building fibre faster than expected

Like many of its larger rivals, the US broadband provider is on a mission to roll out as much fibre as possible as quickly as possible. And, given the competitive nature of the market, it is understandably keen to shout about its latest milestone.

The firm says it had been shooting for 1.75 million premises by year-end, but exceeded its target by some tens of thousands, having rolled out 17,600-plus miles of fibre-optic cabling in 2024 alone.

"When we launched in 2022, we made a multi-billion-dollar investment and a pledge to bring transformative fiber broadband connections to the communities we serve. 2024 proved to be a milestone year for us," said Brightspeed CEO Tom Maguire, in a statement.

Brightspeed actually came into being in late 2021 when Apollo Global Management renamed the consumer operations it was in the process of acquiring from Lumen Technologies; to all intents and purposes, Brightspeed used to be CenturyLink. Under new ownership, the firm said it would spend US$2 billion rolling out fibre to 3 million homes and businesses over a five-year period.

These latest figures represent a serious dent in that initial target, but in the interim the firm has increased its goal and now suggests it may be ahead of schedule there too.

"Our well-planned execution and the landmark reinvestment and support from our financial stakeholders has paid off, generating the momentum to move closer to achieving our upsized goal of passing more than four million locations with our fiber network build across our territories," Maguire said. "With our proven operational expertise, we are well-positioned to exceed our goal."

Indeed. It's about halfway there and has another couple of years to go before it hits the five-year mark.

On the subject of financial stakeholders, United Arab Emirates-based Mubadala Investment Company announced it would plough $500 million into Brightspeed just over 18 months ago. The investor, which had at the time recently committed cash to UK fibre builder CityFibre, was clearly keen to get in on the ground floor with the US market starting to show signs of hotting up.

As activity over the past six months has shown, those signs were pointing in the right direction. Late last year AT&T set a target of covering 50 million locations with fibre by the end of the decade, while rivals Verizon and T-Mobile US are buying their way in; the former is in the process of spending $20 billion to acquire Frontier Communications, while the latter is shelling out the best part of $5 billion for Metronet.

Brightspeed is a smaller outfit, but it has operations in 20 states and runs a network platform capable of serving 6.5 million homes and businesses. It is actively building fibre in 17 of those states. It has also secured $238 million in grants and government funding, including via the BEAD programme that will increase its planned network build by 121,000 premises in 14 states. And it is on the hunt for more funding of that ilk.

The one thing missing from Brightspeed's announcement though is the number of customers it has actually signed up to its fibre network. It's getting on for two years since Brightspeed started serving its first full fibre customers, but the company has not been particularly forthcoming about its take-up rate. Investors are still keen on fibre, but their returns depend on customer acquisition.