Brightspeed says that it will pass 120,000 locations in Alabama with fiber within the next few years.
As is its pattern, the service provider divided the announcement into passings by the end of next year and the years beyond. In this case, both figures are 60,000 passings.
By the end of next year, Brightspeed says it will pass 60,000 addresses in Baldwin, Covington, Dale, Elmore, Fayette, Geneva, Henry, Pickens, and Tallapoosa counties.
Brightspeed has made several announcements during the past weeks. However, customer engagement and network creation only will be possible when the ILEC assets and associated operations of Lumen Technologies are acquired by Apollo-managed funds. Regulatory approvals are expected during the third quarter of the year and the transaction is expected to be completed early in the fourth quarter.
Brightspeed, which will feature 10G XGS-PON technology, will operate in a total of 20 states. Its plans are to invest at least $2 billion and reach three million homes and businesses during the next five years.
Brightspeed’s construction plans in Alabama will augment 10,000 existing fiber passings that the company will gain from Lumen Technologies. Sherry Hessenthaler, the company’s Operations Strategy Lead, said in a press release that the company may work with the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) to make service available to even more locations.
“We are thrilled to announce our fiber network plans for Alabama,” Hessenthaler said in the press release. “At a time when high-quality internet access has never been more important to today’s families and businesses, we will be ready to hit the ground running with our deployment. It is a privilege to be able to share in Alabama’s growth and development by doing our part to help bridge the digital divide.”
This is the latest in a string of deployment plans that the company has announced recently.
Earlier this month, Brightspeed announced its intention to pass 130,000 addresses in the Commonwealth of Virginia during the next few years. Sixty thousand of those will be completed by the end of next year.
Two days earlier, Brightspeed said it would pass 800,000 homes and businesses in its home state of North Carolina during the next few years. It plans to reach the first 300,000 passings by the end of next year.
In all, Brightspeed plans to pass 1 million addresses with fiber by the end of 2023.
