- Brightspeed estimates there are about 7.3 million premises in its 20-state footprint, making 41% of its footprint fiber enabled
- When it reaches it goal of more than 5 million premises passed, about 70% of its footprint will be fiber enabled
- Side note: The company isn’t seeing nearly as much copper theft as AT&T
Recently, New Street Research analyst David Barden suggested that Brightspeed might make a good acquisition target for Verizon, so Fierce Network asked Jacky Wu, Brightspeed’s president & CFO, about that prospect.
“While we won’t comment on market speculation, we do believe convergence is real,” said Wu. “As the largest fiber platform outside of AT&T and Verizon, it’s not surprising that Brightspeed would generate interest. This year represents our third consecutive year of passing approximately one million homes and businesses with fiber, underscoring the strength of the fiber-build engine we’ve created.”
There’s general consensus among telecom analysts that 2026 is going to be a big year for consolidation in the fiber industry in the U.S. And there aren’t many fiber broadband providers left that pass more than one million locations.
That said, competition from satelitte is real, Wu. said. Indeed, Brightspeed faces competition from satellite and fixed wireless providers, and cable is also a significant competitor. “Our strongest differentiator is fiber,” said Wu. “We see strong demand from customers who value reliability, symmetrical speeds and consistent long‑term performance. These are advantages that wireless and satellite solutions, and increasingly cable, struggle to deliver.”
Brightspeed was created in 2022 with assets it acquired from Lumen Technologies. It’s currently the nation’s third-largest fiber builder, and it has now surpassed three million fiber-enabled locations.
The company estimates there are about 7.3 million premises in its 20-state footprint. This means that currently, 41% of its 20-state footprint is fiber enabled.
When it reaches it goal of more than 5 million premises passed, approximately 70% of its footprint will be fiber enabled.
Kristy Harrison, EVP of Operations at Brightspeed, told Fierce that the company isn’t just overbuilding Lumen’s old copper footprint. It’s also deploying fiber in new subdivisions.
Overcoming copper theft
For companies that have a lot of legacy copper infrastructure, copper theft is a big issue. Recently, AT&T said it experienced more than 10,400 copper-theft incidents in 2025, resulting in losses of $82 million. A majority of those thefts were in California where it experienced more than 7,300 copper-theft incidents in 2025, with losses exceeding $54 million.
For its part, Brightspeed saw approximately 762 copper-theft incidents in 2025. A company spokesperson said, “Each incident causes network outages that disrupt customers, strain our reputation and require costly repairs. These events also divert technician hours from new installations and demand significant coordination with law enforcement, making copper theft far more than a financial issue.”
Perhaps one of the best ways to mitigate the impact of copper theft is to completely retire copper plant. And in fact, over the past year the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has worked to enable that. And at its March 26, 2026 open meeting the FCC adopted a Report and Order entitled “Modernizing Network and Communication Services.”
Harrison said, “Any regulations that provide relief regarding copper services help us when it comes to making business decisions.”
But she said many of Brightspeed’s customers are very rural, and the service provider is trying to overbuild those far-flung copper-based locations as fast as it can. “We want to continue, obviously, to serve them,” said Harrison. “We know it's easier to migrate customers from copper to fiber than it is to acquire new customers. So, we are still very focused on serving those copper customers.”
Brightspeed's BEAD funding details
Brightspeed has provisionally been awarded more than $564 million in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds that will help it reach an additional 185,000 locations in 18 states.
Together with ARPA funding, the company has been awarded more than $860 million in broadband grant funding.