Masha Abarinova

Windstream Wholesale, Windstream’s optical transport division, touted it’s reached a “major construction milestone” on its CanAm2 long-haul fiber build, a 440-mile route that will eventually connect Montreal, Canada, to New York City. The Canadian portion of the route—from Montreal to the New York state border—is substantially complete, said Karl-Arne Hegewald, Windstream’s SVP of network infrastructure and program management. He noted Montreal is “an important growth hub” for content providers and other data centers.

Minnesota is getting a taste of open-access fiber, as Intrepid Fiber will expand its network into the Greater St. Cloud area—bringing symmetrical multi-gig broadband to over 44,000 households and businesses. This marks Intrepid’s second open access initiative in the state: a project in Bloomington is set to cover 40,000 locations. As for St. Cloud, construction is already underway in the city as well as in Sauk Rapids, Waite Park, and Sartell. Intrepid expects fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) service to be live in the area by the end of 2023.

With Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program buildouts on the horizon, federal agencies are getting an extra hand with the permitting process. The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council unveiled it will allocate nearly $155 million to assist agencies in infrastructure permitting review. For example, the funding will allow agencies to hire permitting experts and acquire “vital tools and resources” so they can review projects in time.

One year has passed since Brightspeed became the fifth largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the US, and it’s made some notable progress in its $2 billion multi-year fiber deployment. Most of Brightspeed’s footprint is currently served with copper, but the operator is undertaking fiber builds in 17 states and officially launched fiber service on March 1, 2023.

The Broadband Forum is striving to better inform broadband providers of the work it’s doing in technical standards, with the help of the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA). In July, the Broadband Forum and FBA partnered to focus on developing and educating the broadband industry on best practices.

The fate of the Universal Service Fund (USF) remains uncertain, as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held an en banc (before the entire bench) hearing to debate whether the current system is illegal The USF includes four main programs aimed at addressing the digital divide – High Cost, Lifeline, E-Rate (for schools and libraries) and Rural Health Care.

AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches said it's a safe bet that AT&T and BlackRock's joint venture—Gigapower—will tap into Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding; but stressed the importance of targeting those funds in “areas that make sense for us.” Deroches said “We are not getting dollars for the sake of getting dollars. We want to make sure we can get an appropriate return on those.”

Charter Communications has frequently talked up the pace of its rural deployments, reaching 68,000 subsidized rural passings in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023. CFO Jessica Fischer said the Charter has a “tremendous opportunity” to expand its footprint to rural areas. Charter was one of the largest winners in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, and Fischer noted progress in those builds “has been going quite well” in terms of pace and penetration.

Comcast has continued to shed broadband subscribers, despite domestic broadband revenue being a bright spot in its second quarter (Q2) earnings. CEO Brain Roberts noted average revenue per user (ARPU) for broadband grew “four and a half percent” in the first half of 2023. As to what’s driving Comcast’s broadband growth, Roberts pointed to an influx of broadband usage, which “almost doubled” in the last couple of years.

Northeast broadband provider Archtop Fiber has completed its acquisition of GTel, which will allow Archtop to expand its network in more than five townships across New York’s Columbia County. GTel currently has more than 2,500 customers on a 300-mile fiber network.