Cable One joint venture Clearwave wants to hit 500 thousand rural homes with fiber by 2027

Clearwave Fiber, a joint venture formed by operator Cable One and a handful of partners in January 2022, is looking to make a big impact in small towns, targeting fiber rollouts to half a million rural locations by 2027. It is mostly aiming for organic growth but also has its eye out for strategic acquisitions and in fact already struck a deal to buy a small Kansas-based fiber provider, CEO Byron Cantrall said. According to Cantrall, Clearwave plans to hit its expansion goal through a 70/30 mix of densification in existing markets and edge-outs to greenfield areas outside its current footprint. The former will include work in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina, while the latter could see it reach into parts of Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana. As it grows its fiber footprint, Cantrall said Clearwave is expecting penetration rates to reach around 20 percent after 12 months. But that number could be much, much higher. “We think that the communities – because of how unserved these communities are the take rate will be much greater than that,” he said. Right now it’s offering plans ranging from 50 Mbps to 1 Gbps, but Cantrall said it is looking to move into multi-gig territory sometime in the future.