- Brightspeed claims it's now the 3rd largest fiber builder in the U.S.
- The company aims to pass four millions homes with fiber by year end
- New Street Research speculates that Brightspeed might make a good acquisition target for Verizon
Brightspeed — a broadband company that was created in 2022 from assets it acquired from Lumen Technologies — today claims it’s the nation’s third-largest fiber builder, and it has now surpassed three million fiber-enabled locations.
The top two fiber deployers in terms of current build rates in the U.S. are AT&T and Verizon.
For Brightspeed, 2026 will mark the company’s second consecutive year of building more than one million fiber passings, putting it on track to reach four million homes by the end of this year. Ultimately it aims to pass more than five million homes and businesses across its 20-state footprint.
Brightspeed Executive Vice President of Operations Kristy Harrison said in a statement today, “Building at this pace for a second straight year takes coordination, discipline and an unwavering focus on execution.”
The company, which operates in states across the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, has come a long way during its approximately four years of existence. Initially, it covered about 6.7 million homes passed, but only 230,000 of residential homes and 11,000 commercial locations were passed with fiber. That compares with today’s announcement of three million homes passed with fiber.
New Street Research recently initiated coverage on Brightspeed even though it’s a private company. NSR analyst David Barden wrote, “Given the high level of investor interest in Brightspeed, we have ventured beyond our typical public-equity focus to join the conversation around the nation’s largest private copper-fiber over-builder.”
Interestingly, Barden also wrote, “Lately, we’ve joined many discussions about the feasibility of Verizon emerging as a Brightspeed (and/or Uniti) suitor, which we believe is a real possibility.”
NSR says that “penetration is the single most important input determining the success of a fiber company,” and it estimates that Brightspeed will achieve 36% terminal penetration.
“At inception, we believe the original management team adopted a ‘build it and they will come’ strategy, which prioritized passings over penetration,” added NSR. “We believe this concentration led to increased competition from 3rd party overbuilders that saw an opportunity within the footprint. At our Global Connectivity Leaders Conference last week, Brightspeed highlighted a dedication to quickly penetrate its footprint to stem new competition using a more focused go-to-market strategy.”
Telecom analysts are predicting a lot of consolidation in the fiber market this year and next. Meanwhile, they hate to see operators overbuilding each other. TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams recently wrote, “Competitive dynamics have become paramount, especially with FWA in the mix, and thankfully we're seeing good discipline around overbuilding each other.”