Brightspeed and Ziply CEOs unpack fiber deployment challenges

USTelecom hosted its annual Broadband Investment Forum, in which internet service providers (ISPs) and policymakers came together to discuss the most poignant issues in the industry. One of the sessions featured Brightspeed CEO Tom Maguire and Ziply Fiber CEO Harold Zeitz, who shared their respective approaches to fiber deployment and how they view the broader competitive landscape. When Brightspeed began operations last fall, its initial goal was to try and hit as many households as possible, said Maguire. The operator has outlined plans to reach 1 million passings by the end of 2023 and 3 million within five years. As Brightspeed moves into its second year as the fifth largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the US, it’s shifting toward a “marketplace perspective,” where it can go into a particular market and see if it can grab a high penetration rate, which in turn can “help us deliver additional trends down the road.” Zeitz thinks Ziply can get fiber to about 85 percent of the ILEC footprint it acquired from Frontier in 2020. The company is building in a way to “not encumber a municipality too much at one time” by choosing “to build parts of towns across and then fill out.” Even though it’s “more economical” to finish work in a market in one go, Ziply found this approach also aligns with the time it takes to get projects approved.