Ziply Fiber announced its first edge-out market today – Yakima, Washington, where the company has begun deploying fiber broadband that will offer speeds up to 5 Gbps symmetrically. The community is outside Ziply’s local service footprint but had been asking the company to offer service there because it already serves neighboring towns, said Ziply CEO Harold Zeitz in an interview with Telecompetitor.
Ziply plans additional edge-out builds because “we have so much demand from towns that are nearby our network,” Zeitz said.
He declined to say how many edge-out markets the company is targeting, but said the company started with Yakima because the town made it easy.
“There are a series of things you have to do to build in any town,” said Zeitz. “We were able to work with the city and get permits in a timely manner.”
Charter and Lumen currently serve Yakima, but according to Zeitz, “We’re not as focused on who’s there as on who delivers the best [service].”
In determining which edge-out markets to target next, Zeitz said Ziply would “prioritize them based on how fast we can do them” and on how willing each town is to work with Ziply by, for example, expediting the permit process.
Ziply launched 5 Gbps service using XGS-PON in 60 markets in its Northwest service territory last year and said at that time that it would offer multi-gigabit capability for all new fiber builds.
According to a Ziply press release, Yakima also has the distinction of being the 100th community to which the company has brought or will bring fiber broadband.
The company had its genesis when it acquired Frontier’s local service business in 2020 in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
