Brightspeed plans fiber boost for Louisiana

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 operator recently secured the last state regulatory approval required for its deal with Lumen and said it expects to wrap up the transaction in late 2022. As part of the deal, it will acquire around 7 million addressable locations. Following the close of the deal, Maguire said Brightspeed will “hit the ground running on Day 1” with its fiber rollout. He added from the time the deal wraps in 2022 to the end of 2023 Brightspeed is planning to “hit upwards of 200 wire centers" across nearly all of its 20-state footprint, though noted certain variables could affect the timing of its work in each state.