- Great Plains is expanding its residential footprint through M&A, with its Fastwyre deal marking the latest step
- The company sees its 20,000-mile backbone as a major growth engine
- Great Plains is also laying groundwork for broader AI use through an OSS/BSS overhaul
Great Plains Communications (GPC) has a lot going on. The company just inked a deal to acquire 40,000 passings from Fastwyre in Nebraska, marking its fifth purchase in the last eight years. CEO Todd Foje told Fierce more residential M&A could be on the table but noted the operator’s backbone network is one of its key moneymakers and a focal point for forward-looking investment.
“There are some newer companies that focus on just fiber-to-the-home or just hyperscaler data center connectivity or they have to pick one or two things because they can only raise capital to do those,” Foje said. But GPC juggles a combination of residential, business and wholesale.
Its network stretches more than 20,000 miles across 13 states. Assets include both its residential last mile network as well as an upgraded 400G backbone network that runs from Colorado and Wyoming in the West to Ohio and Kentucky in the East.
The Fastwyre deal fleshes out its residential footprint in Nebraska, with passings across around two dozen communities in the state, including around 17,000 in suburban areas around Omaha. Foje characterized the deal as a sort of reunification given Fastwyre and GPC were part of the same company until 1974.
Will Great Plains do more M&A?
Looking ahead, Foje said M&A remains an “important” part of its growth strategy, adding it’s open to purchasing good companies of all sizes that fit its geographic strategy. He added prospects don’t have to be pure fiber players, but they do need to be what he called “fiber rich.”
GPC itself is currently “fiber rich” with CFO Nick Wilkin telling Fierce that about a quarter of its network still includes HFC plant. However, Wilkin and Foje said the company has fiber conversion programs in place and is working toward being completely fiber based within the next five years, if not sooner.
In addition to M&A, it’s also densifying its residential footprint not through the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) but through the $18 billion Enhanced Alternative Connect America (E-ACAM) program. Like BEAD, E-ACAM is focused on expanding rural broadband deployments.
What is Great Plains' strategy?
The third leg of its strategy is a square focus on investing in its sprawling backbone network, with Foje pointing to this as a key priority in terms of capital allocation.
He noted GPC has relationships “with the major hyperscalers,” which comes as little surprise given a recent uptick in data center build activity in the Midwest. But it’s also working with tower companies and LEO satellite players looking for terrestrial connectivity for ground stations.
Foje said all three are successful and growing businesses.
“For us it’s a toll road, and we’re willing to let other carriers drive on our toll road in return for paying the toll,” Foje said. “We do have a lot going on in that network but that’s been our strategy … We want to put as many revenue streams as possible on each mile of fiber and each dollar of investment.”
What are the company's AI initiatives?
Asked about the company’s AI initiatives, Foje said GPC is in the third year of a five-year OSS/BSS upgrade project. As part of that initiative, the operator is using AI tools to find more ways to be more efficient across its business.
“We’re overhauling the chassis of our systems, and once we do that, then that opens up the door to be able to participate in or to leverage agentic AI in other types of applications,” Wilkin said.
Foje added GPC is focused on using AI in ways that improve the customer experience and believes cost efficiencies will flow as a byproduct of success on that front. Notably, though, it hasn’t turned to AI to take over its customer care.
At this point, Foje said it’s still using humans – and local ones at that – to field customer calls.
“The customer care lives and works in the communities and I think that’s really important for some of these rural locations that they serve,” Foje said. “They know that they’re talking to people that they saw in the grocery store on Sunday.”