Ting Halts Work in City Filled with D.C. Powerful

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2025 – An Internet competitor to Comcast in a Northern Virginia city is now pausing its fiber deployment in the region

Ting Internet, a small fiber ISP, has reportedly “temporarily paused fiber deployment” in Alexandria, Va., a community adjacent to Washington, D.C., and the home of many federal officials, Capitol Hill staff, and lobbyists. The city has begun to raise concerns about Ting construction crews having damaged other utility lines. 

Another outage accident Saturday night caused by a fiber break in Alexandria led to the Ting announcing Monday that it ‘has temporarily paused fiber deployment’ in the city.

“The company has been notorious for striking other utilities while digging to install fiber lines in Alexandria and an outage that started on Saturday has not been fully resolved as of noon on Monday,” ALXnow reported Monday. According to updated Ting communications, the outage has been partially resolved, but its team is still in the process of conducting repairs to get all customers back online.

Tucows, Ting’s corporate parent in Toronto, did not respond to an email Monday or phone call Tuesday seeking comment.

Last November, Ting cut 42% of its workforce. The ISP ended the third quarter with 49,637 broadband subscribers.

Ting is not the only ISP that is running into fiber installation issues. Ziply Fiber has run into trouble with Sammamish, Wash., (pop. 65,000) over community concerns about the installation of fiber lines. As a result of the public unease, the city of Sammamish has suspended all Ziply Fiber right-of-way permits as of last Thursday. 

"The only work currently allowed while the permits are suspended is the securing of active sites for safety, restoration, and erosion control," the city said. 

Ziply Fiber, based in Kirkland, Wash., has signed a deal to sell to BCE Inc. through its subsidiary Bell Canada, for approximately $3.65 billion in cash, plus $1.46 billion in assumed net debt.