Diana Goovaerts

Cable and telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon have spent a lot of time talking up their ability to bundle fixed and mobile services, touting such offers as a key retention and churn reduction tool. But how much do consumers actually want to bundle their services with a single operator? Recon Analytics founder Roger Enter said bundling is far from a priority for most broadband customers. “People don’t make decisions based on the bundle, but they do make decisions based on performance and price,” he said.

Cox Communications parent company Cox Enterprises inked a deal to acquire well-known news outlet Axios for more than half a billion dollars, in a move the former pitched as part of an effort to diversify its business. As part of the transaction, Cox Enterprises CEO Alex Taylor will join Axios’ board. Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz will lead editorial operations and retain “substantial stakes” in the company.

Regional US operator Shenandoah Telecommunications (Shentel) grew revenue 8.8 percent in second quarter 2022 as its Glo Fiber business thrived, but its net loss doubled as it took a financial hit from the decommissioning of unprofitable Beam fixed wireless access sites. During the quarter, Shentel’s Glo Fiber unit chugged past the 100,000 passings milestone, adding 19,000 new locations to reach a total of approximately 113,000.

As more fiber rollouts are announced across the U.S., the broadband industry is facing a looming problem: finding enough workers to actually deploy the tens of millions of new passings they’ve promised. Government statistics show the number of telecommunications workers has dropped drastically over the past decade and that figure isn’t expected to rebound anytime soon.

Yellowstone Fiber already has $65 million in private funding in hand to build an open access network in Montana, but is now seeking to tap into millions more in federal funding to accelerate the pace of its rollout. Formerly known as Bozeman Fiber, the operator teamed with UTOPIA Fiber in late 2021 and announced plans to deliver fiber to more than 20,000 locations across the city of Bozeman, Montana. It subsequently rebranded as Yellowstone Fiber and kicked off construction in February 2022.

Market announcements from new fiber provider Brightspeed continue to roll, with the company setting its sights on a substantial buildout in Missouri as its latest target. The company said it plans to reach more than 130,000 locations across 19 counties in the state by the end of 2023. That figure is set to jump to more than 310,000 by the end of its five-year build plan. At least for its initial build, projects will span Boone, Carroll, Cass, Cedar, Dent, Gasconade, Howell, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Lawrence, Marion, Moniteau, Nodaway, Oregon, Phelps, St.

A debate has been raging between cable and fiber players over whether symmetrical speeds are a must-have or merely a marketing campaign. But the question of whether consumers need symmetrical speeds is very different from asking whether they want such capabilities.

Regional US operator Shenandoah Telecommunications (Shentel) is staking out a number of new beachheads as it works to expand its fiber network, but operator representatives said it has no interest in island hopping. Instead, they said it plans to focus on building out a contiguous network, citing reliability and operational benefits. Shentel in June 2022 announced plans to expand its network footprint into the state of Delaware. It is initially targeting more than 21,000 locations in Sussex County (DE), with engineering in progress and construction expected to ramp in early 2023.

Brightspeed, a new fiber player which is buying Lumen’s ILEC assets in 20 states and is led by former Verizon executives, announced Louisiana as the sixth state set to benefit from its ambitious multi-year deployment plan. Though it has yet to reveal additional plans for individual states, COO Tom Maguire said it is targeting work across “virtually all of our state footprint” in 2022 and 2023.

The Federal Communications Commission is in the midst of a multi-year, multi-million-dollar effort to update its broadband coverage map. But the gears of government turn slowly and rather than waiting for the new FCC maps, several states including Virginia, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Florida have either already released or are developing their own maps. While this might seem like a duplicative effort on the surface, Anna Read, senior officer for Pew's Broadband Access Initiative, said the state-level maps will complement rather than compete with the new FCC map.