Ookla Taps Seven Fiber ISPs Ripe for Acquisition
The research firm found national ISPs served nearly 50 percent of the uncontested fiber markets in the U.S.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2026 – The major wireless carriers have each been buying up fiber providers in recent years, and more are likely to be rolled up as larger ISPs seek to expand their footprints.
Ookla has some ideas about which providers are likely targets.
Allo Fiber, Gateway Fiber, LiveOak Fiber, Wire 3, Ripple Fiber, Intrepid Fiber, and Ezee Fiber are the most likely to be involved in a deal, according to a Monday report from Mike Dano, Ookla’s lead industry analyst.
“To be clear, these are not the companies that will be acquired or will make acquisitions, but are simply ones that match a number of characteristics displayed by the companies typically involved in fiber transactions,” he said in the report.
Ripple Fiber is already being acquired by Eaton Fiber, which itself has a deal to provide Verizon service on its infrastructure. Analysts expect Verizon will be aiming for similar deals to reach its goal of up to 50 million passings.
Dano said three primary things make an ISP ripe for acquisition: affluent subscribers, network expansion, and minimal competition.
The seven companies he identified are expanding their networks and some have sizable footprints already. Ezee fiber cleared 600,000 passings at the end of last year, and Allo Fiber says it has 300,000 homes in its footprint.
LiveOak, Gateway, Wire 3, and Intrepid Fiber are each pursuing network expansion projects. Intrepid recently acquired Ubiquity’s 35,000 fiber passings in San Diego County and counted nearly 150,000 a year ago.
Dano said he used Ookla speed test data to find 500 ISPs that were likely providing service with fiber, and narrowed the pool down with each of those three criteria to arrive at the seven prime acquisition targets.
The analysis found that 47.6 percent of uncontested fiber markets, those with only one terrestrial ISP, are occupied by nationwide providers like AT&T and Verizon. Some sizable providers like Uniti’s Kinetic brand and Ziply made up another 14 percent.
The remaining 38.4 percent of uncontested markets were served by smaller providers.
T-Mobile’s fiber joint ventures
AT&T is aiming for 60 million fiber passings by the end of 2030, and Verizon’s goal is 40 million to 50 million over the long term.
The companies are aiming high because they say bundling fixed and mobile broadband makes customers much less likely to switch, something smaller ISPs with no mobile service say they’re noticing too in some places. The cable giants are also all in on bundles.
T-Mobile, however, isn’t sold. The company is aiming for 12 million to 15 million fiber passings by the end of 2030, purely because they’re money makers in their own right.
The company has been spending billions to acquire stakes in regional fiber operators through joint ventures with private equity firms.
Ookla found MetroNet accounted for 52.1 percent of T-Mobile’s customer speed tests, with Lumos coming in second at 14.8 percent. The total included GoNetSpeed and i3 Broadband, which haven’t closed yet. They accounted for 7.1 and 6.5 percent of the total, respectively.
At the end of 2020, when it reported subscriber numbers for the last time, T-Mobile had nearly 1 million fiber subscribers.
