AT&T Announces Wholesale Agreements with 4 Open Access Fiber Providers
Big telecom carriers are racing to expand their fiber footprints.
WASHINGTON, September 9, 2024 – AT&T announced on Monday wholesale agreements with four open access fiber broadband providers. That’s in addition to the company’s existing partnership on an open access network with investment firm BlackRock.
“Each company AT&T is working with was selected because they provide opportunities to expand AT&T Fiber distribution to new service areas without existing fiber options,” the company wrote in a release. “As these providers add fiber locations, AT&T will evaluate where it wants to offer AT&T Fiber.”
Those companies are Boldyn Networks, Digital Infrastructure Group, PRIME FiBER, and Uniquity. Initial build areas include multiple Texas military bases by Boldyn, PRIME in Florida, and Ubiquity in Minnesota. AT&T didn’t specify the size of those projects but said it’s on track to surpass its goal of 30 million passings by the end of next year, potentially by as much as 15 million.
“These fiber agreements provide AT&T with wholesale access to these fiber broadband networks, enabling the Company to offer both AT&T Fiber and 5G wireless services to more customers,” the company wrote.
The announcement comes as AT&T’s wireless competitors are moving to expand their own fiber footprints. Verizon closed a $20 billion deal to buy Frontier last week, and T-Mobile has moved to acquire two fiber providers in the last year.
The company also said it’s looking to expand Gigapower beyond the initial 1.5 million location target. “This Gigapower expansion may include growth in its existing geographies as well as the addition of new geographies,” the company wrote.
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Gigapower has so far announced plans to build in Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Minnesota and the Carolinas. Executives from the company have said it’s eyeing federal grant dollars from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, which are expected to start flowing from states next year.
AT&T CEO John Stankey said in the company’s Q2 earnings call that he’s going to talk in more detail about the status of Gigapower’s build outs at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference Tuesday.
