NEW ORLEANS, May 12, 2023 – AT&T is set to invest several million dollars of capital into fiber builds across the country as it announces the closing of its joint venture deal with fund manager BlackRock, the company said.  

In December, AT&T and BlackRock announced the formation of their joint venture, Gigapower LLC, to operate and deploy a fiber network to 1.5 million customers using a commercial open access platform.  

The deal between the companies closed Thursday. According to the press release, the new company’s goal is to “create the United States’ largest commercial wholesale open access fiber network to bring high-speed connectivity to more Americans.” 

“We believe fiber connectivity changes everything. That’s why we’re already one of the biggest investors in fiber in the United States,” said John Stankey, CEO of AT&T in a statement.  

“The demand for high-speed connectivity is unprecedented, and through this innovative partnership with BlackRock, one of the world’s foremost investors in infrastructure, we’re able to connect even more people and businesses, accelerating our efforts to help close the digital divide,” he said. 

Gigapower will enable AT&T to expand its fiber reach beyond its traditional areas and spread across the country, read the press release. BlackRock brings significant expertise and capital to support the buildout. 

The company expects to expand into Las Vegas, Nevada and areas of Arizona as well as Northeastern Pennsylvania and parts of Alabama and Florida that are currently outside of AT&T’s service areas. 

Christopher Sambar, executive vice president of AT&T, said in a Connect (X) event Wednesday that the company has already invested millions of dollars to build the most expansive fiber network in America.  

Between 2018 and 2022, AT&T invested $120 billion into the US economy via capital expenditures, he said, making the company one of the largest capital investors in America. 

Fiber is the backbone of wireless and 5G technology, he said. It is essential that the industry builds the foundation of fiber to support 5G and enable further innovations in the technology. 

According to Sambar, well over 170 million customers are being serviced with high-speed 5G networks and close to 300 million are serviced with speeds close to 5G.  

HOUSTON, May 5, 2023 – A utility-based broadband model is the only solution to bridge the digital divide, panel heard at the Broadband Communities Summit Thursday. 

“If we’re going to solve the digital divide, we need to use the utility model,” stated Josh Leonard from engineering company Burns and McDonalds. 

A utility model, sometimes dubbed municipal broadband, is broadband infrastructure owned by public entities. Service is provided to residents by service providers that lease publicly owned networks in an open-access system.  

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, most state and city officials understand that broadband needs to be the fourth utility – after water, gas and electricity – said Leonard, but they do not treat it as such. 

Utilities understand how to operate large infrastructure projects that connect hundreds and thousands of homes, said Sean Stokes, partner at Keller and Heckman law firm. Utilities already have a core internal communication capability and already have essential infrastructure in place such as utility poles. 

Although utilities rarely want to be an internet service provider, Stokes continued, they are uniquely positioned to effectively run the network and lease it to providers. Open access enables partnerships with entities that want to be investors but don’t want to operate or be a provider, said Ashley Poling of fiber network software company COS Systems. 

Building single-use fiber, as many ISPs do when connecting communities, harms communities by requiring multiple digs in the future. The goal is to build capacity for all current and futures once, said Franciso Arbide of NextEra Infrastructure Solutions 

Does so allows more flexibility to add providers, eliminates issues if providers have poor service, and put pressure on non-performing providers, said Arbide. 

Entities looking to invest in large-scale infrastructure investments are not making realistic assessments of the actual cost of deploying infrastructure, cost and time to access utility poles, increased cost and delay in supply chains, and labor shortages, said Stokes. The best solution is to utilize the assets that utilities already have in their toolbelt, he said. 

Experience is the number-one priority when looking to build a broadband project, agreed Seema Patel of Chapman and Cutler. “Having experience in the industry is really going to be critical,” she said. 

“This infrastructure-based utility model is what succeeds,” said Poling. “The states that understand this will really achieve almost 100 percent digital equity. Others will not.”

HOUSTON, May 4, 2023 – Counties are uniquely situated to help internet service providers and builders enter a community, said county leaders and broadband providers in a Broadband Communities event Tuesday. 

Counties are energized to bring broadband to the community, said Greg Puckett, Mercy County commissioner in West Virginia. They are the people on the ground who hear the complaints of the community members. 

In one rural county, towns desperately needed broadband to keep their residents and remain a functioning town, added Doug Maglothin, CEO of network operator Diamond State Networks.  

County governments know how to get public infrastructure done unlike cities and towns, added John Garamendi of Calaveras County, California. Counties are accustomed to authorizing, planning, and building large infrastructure programs and know how to navigate the problems associated, he said.  

Americans were given a “gift” when the federal government acknowledged the power and understanding that counties have of their communities by directing states to allocate federal grant funds to localities, said Puckett.  

Counties are “the one level we’ve identified… that has the ability to do all the necessary build out,” added David Kramer from provider Altafiber. Counties “have a view of what they want to do,” he said. 

“We have to do more at a regional level, not just focus on states,” he urged.