Brightspeed said today that it has made fiber broadband available to more than one million locations within the first year of launching Brightspeed Fiber Internet.
The high-speed broadband service is available to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in more than 160 communities across 20 states. Further expansion is expected soon as the company has more than two million passings currently in the engineering and construction process. Brightspeed is also pursuing state and federal funding to augment its current fiber network build plan.
The latest activity includes work in 17 states, where the company is using XGS-PON (10-Gigabit Symmetric Passive Optical Network) technology to deliver multi-gig-speed symmetrical upload and download capabilities. The company’s fiber internet service offerings also include a Wi-Fi 6 router.
Brightspeed was founded a year ago when CenturyLink/Lumen sold off its local service business in 20 states to Apollo Global Management, which coined the Brightspeed name for the acquisition.
Only 2% to 3% of the footprint that Apollo bought from CenturyLink had been upgraded to fiber when the ownership was transferred. Brightspeed’s goal is to get fiber to 50% of its footprint using $2 billion in funding that Apollo made available to the company for deployments.
“We hit the ground running when we launched the company only 18 short months ago, and reaching this significant milestone demonstrates the results of well-planned execution by the entire Brightspeed team,” said Brightspeed CEO Tom Maguire, in a prepared statement.
One of the company’s latest fiber deployments is in and around Killeen and Bell County, Texas, announced last month. Permitting and construction are underway to connect more than 95,000 local homes and businesses. The first 10,000 are already online, and Brightspeed said it is on schedule to more than double the amount over the next few months.
