- In Q1 2026 Uniti’s Kinetic expanded its fiber network to pass an additional 88,000 homes
- It ended the quarter with about 1.94 million homes passed with fiber
- The company’s Fiber Infrastructure business is also seeing strong demand from AI
Uniti Group reported its first quarter 2026 earnings this week, and during the call, an analyst asked the question on everyone’s mind: Is Uniti looking to sell its Kinetic assets? The question is relevant because there were rumors in early April that T-Mobile, and possibly others, were eyeing the Kinetic.
Spefically, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams asked, “I'm curious to hear your thoughts if you'd sell Kinetic assets sooner rather than later?”
Uniti Group CEO Ken Gunderman answered, “With respect to Kinetic, there's no hard and fast timeline for us. You know from our history, we're always active in the M&A market. Going back over the years, we've sold our tower business. We've sold fiber operations in the Northeast and the Midwest. And so, there's no timeline on execution there. We're very focused on achieving shareholder value as soon as we possibly can, and if M&A is a tool for us to do that, then we're absolutely open-minded to that in the near term.”
Since the news broke that T-Mobile and others might be interested in buying Uniti assets, the company’s stock has risen about 42% compared to its price after its fourth quarter 2025 earnings.
In a research note related to the earnings the analysts at TD Cowen, wrote, “All eyes are now on Uniti as an M&A target in the era of wireless/wireline convergence and AI data center frenzy.”
Q1 earnings
Uniti Group, which merged with Windstream in August 2025, reports its earnings in three primary business segments: i) Kinetic, which is its consumer broadband business including fiber to the home (FTTH); ii) Fiber Infrastructure, which includes transport network services and wholesale fiber; and iii) Uniti Solutions that offers managed services and enterprise technology.
Paul Bullington, Uniti’s CFO said that during the first quarter Kinetic expanded its fiber network to pass an additional 88,000 homes, the company’s highest level of new passings in almost four years. It ended the quarter with about 1.94 million homes passed with fiber. Kinetic also added 30,000 net new fiber subscribers during Q1, ending the quarter with 564,000 total fiber subscribers.
Uniti remains on target to reach at least 2.3 million homes passed with fiber by the end of this year, which would bring fiber coverage within the Kinetic footprint to over 50%.
“We also expect to end the year with between 675,000 and 700,000 fiber subs and realize $635 million to $655 million of consumer fiber revenue in 2026, an increase of roughly 25% to 30% from the prior year,” said Bullington.
The company is also seeing an uptick in its Fiber Infrastructure business due to the demand from AI.
Gunderman said, “Having fiber in unique locations is also advantageous from a long-haul wholesale perspective as we've been selling less competitive, but increasingly desired, routes. Sometimes it's better to be fortunate than smart, and our footprint happens to be located in or near markets that have power and land availability, which is giving us an outsized opportunity to build for the AI revolution.”
The company reported that fiber revenue within its Fiber Infrastructure group grew 13% during the quarter.
“The opportunity in wholesale fiber right now is generational in nature and we're extremely well positioned with the right strategy, leadership, assets to capture our share in both dark fiber and waves,” said Gunderman. “There has never been a better time to be a wholesale fiber provider.”
He also looked to the future and said that the inference phase of AI will provide even more opportunities for Uniti.
The first phase of AI is the training phase, where large language models (LLMs) ingest data and learn patterns. The inference phase is where a trained model is used to make predictions or draw conclusions based on new input data.
Gunderman said, “When the inference phase fully ramps, a more expansive group of customers will be using AI and will need highly reliable, low latency, ultra-high bandwidth connectivity, and the mission-critical advantages of fiber will really rise above all other technologies.”