- Lumos tapped Scott Mispagel to take over for outgoing chief Brian Stading
- Mispagel spent more than a decade at Frontier Communications
- The transition is significant given Lumos is a key part of T-Mobile's master plan for fiber
Lumos has swooped into snag one of Frontier’s key fiber executives to fill its CEO post, as the T-Mobile-backed fiber builder looks to accelerate its network expansion. Scott Mispagel was tapped to take over for outgoing chief Brian Stading, effectively immediately.
Mispagel most recently spent more than a decade at Frontier Communications, serving as SVP for Network Engineering and Operations for the past seven years. Before joining Frontier, he held a role as VP of Network Technology Planning and Engineering at Windstream, and he also served as director of Data Planning at Valor Telecom in the early aughts.
Outgoing CEO Brian Stading said in a statement Mispagel brings “a proven ability to scale organizations, drive operational excellence and build high-performing teams” and called him the “ideal person to guide the company forward.”
Stading, who has served as Lumos’ CEO since 2022, has overseen significant growth at the company, including the addition of nearly 700,000 new passings and the company’s expansion from two states to 10.
Lumos expanded into Alabama, Indiana, Georgia, Florida and Illinois last year alone. The remaining five states it serves include Ohio, North and South Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.
Asked about its forward-looking plans, a Lumos spokesperson told Fierce: “As we look to expand into additional markets this year, we’re focused on states that offer a pro-investment climate and where we are welcomed and supported from a regulatory, permitting and municipal perspective.”
Lumos in January announced Stading’s plans to retire at the end of Q1.
T-Mobile’s role
The leadership change comes after Lumos was acquired by T-Mobile and EQT last year to form a new fiber joint venture. T-Mobile committed to invest $950 million upfront and another $500 million between 2027 and 2028 to fuel Lumos’ goal of passing 3.5 million homes by the end of 2028.
The Lumos representative said it is still “actively building” and remains “on track to reach our goals.” The rep did not address questions about how many passings it is targeting in 2026 and whether it plans to enter additional new states this year.
Lumos is one of four joint ventures T-Mobile has entered into to ramp its fiber strategy. It also formed a JV with KKR to buy MetroNet; Oak Hill Capital to acquire and combine GoNetspeed and Greenlight Networks; and WrenHouse to acquire i3 Broadband.
Asked about its plan for all of these JVs during Q1 2026 earnings, T-Mobile’s broadband chief André Almeida said T-Mobile’s goal isn’t having fiber everywhere but instead working with its JV partners on targeted geographic expansions in areas that make sense for each operator’s footprint.
He added T-Mobile operates “a common IT platform that runs across all of the JVs” that allows them to all look like a single operation from both a customer and frontline employee standpoint.
“The way we have built this is to make sure that we can take the advantages of scale where that scale is meaningful,” he said. “That scale is meaningful on brand—that is why T-Mobile US, Inc. has taken over all of the retail consumer operations for these assets.”