FCC Approves Lumen Assets Sale, ACA Connects Exec Leaving, Saratoga Springs Getting Fiber
Brightspeed has been accelerating its deployment of fiber broadband across the country.
David B. McGarry
August 22, 2022 – The Federal Communications Commission has approved the sale of broadband assets from Lumen Technologies to Brightspeed, an expanding fiber service provider.
“This transaction will benefit all of these customers, both in Lumen’s remaining 16-state footprint and in the 20 states moving to Brightspeed,” Melisa Mann, Lumen’s vice president of public policy and government affairs, said in a press release. “The FCC’s approval is great news that will bring faster broadband speeds to customers across both companies.”
Brightspeed intends to invest heavily in its new acquisitions, the company said, and the release said the deal will affect customers in twenty of the thirty-six states in which Lumen now operates, and the transition should occur later this year.
ACA executive leaving
Ross Lieberman, the senior vice President of ACA Connects, is leaving the prominent trade group after fifteen years, the organization said in a press release Monday.
His departure is effective as of August 31 and the organization said it is looking for his replacement.
ACA Connects is a trade group that represents more than 600 hundred small- and medium-sized cable operators, focusing its efforts on influencing telecommunications policy at the federal level. The press release announcing Lieberman’s departure credited him for contributing to the organization’s efforts, including a successful push for Congress to provide funding and safeguards for small broadband companies.
“Over the past 15 years, the ACA Connects Board decided one big issue after another based on the candid appraisals offered by Ross stemming from his deep understanding of the political environment in which we had to operate,” ACA Connects Chairman Patricia Jo Boyer said in the release.
Fiber for Saratoga Springs
Saratoga Springs, NY is beginning a $32-million fiber infrastructure project that will reach “every household, business, and institution citywide,” the city announced last week.
This project is being completed in partnership with SiFi Networks and the first homes should have access to fiber connections by winter, it said.
“We took great care to replant grass, place fiber conduit under driveway pavers, and to avoid tree roots in the construction process,” said Robert Heaps, corporate vice president of SiFi Networks.
City officials said they hope to soon roll-out new “smart city” applications, streamlining and improving channels of communication between citizens and the government.
Heaps also stressed the importance of extending fiber broadband access to “every address” in Saratoga Springs. “We believe that everyone in the community deserves high-speed fiber infrastructure. Our FiberCity Aid program helps cover the cost of fiberoptic service for deserving households. We’ll work with the city to get a list of households that qualify for the deeply-discounted service,” he said.
