Masha Abarinova

Frontier Communications expects to surpass one million new fiber passings by the end of 2022 – hitting 100,000 to 200,000 additional locations – according to CFO Scott Beasley. The accelerated buildout is mainly due to Frontier’s recent move to boost its liquidity to a total of $4 billion, meaning the company has plenty of cash on hand until mid-2024. “First, it sends a strong signal to overbuilders to build somewhere else if they thought we weren’t going to build [fiber].

Cable One saw an uptick in customer growth and revenue in first quarter 2022, driven by business acquisitions, and is seeking rapid fiber expansion with its Clearwave Fiber investment. CEO Julie Laulis thinks the latter especially puts the operator in a vital position against competitors.

Municipal-owned City Utilities of Springfield (MO) is more than halfway done with the construction of a more than 1,000-mile fiber network that will cover the entire city, with work expected to wrap in late 2022 around eight to nine months ahead of schedule. Lumen Technologies, which is pursuing a rapid expansion of its residential fiber footprint, is set to serve as an anchor tenant on the network and will deliver symmetric gigabit internet to Springfield’s 180,000 residents and businesses.

Regional US operator C Spire continues its fiber buildout in the South, having begun work in Hoover and Homewood, Alabama. The operator is investing $500 million of its own funding over a three-year period, its deployment driven by crowdsourcing and grassroots campaigns. Ben Moncrief, C Spire’s EVP for Alabama markets, said the company encourages people to visit its website, where they can input their addresses and let the company know where they want fiber deployed. He added C Spire “absolutely” places emphasis on local community feedback.

Tennessee’s broadband deployment is getting a leg up with expanded funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP). The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD) will award up to $400 million to service providers for broadband infrastructure projects. All entities authorized to provide broadband in the state are eligible to receive funding, said Taylre Beaty, state broadband director for the Tennessee ECD. The entities can be solely broadband providers to Tennessee, or they can include nationwide coverage.