Brightspeed becomes 5th largest US ILEC through Lumen deal

After more than a year of waiting, Brightspeed finally closed on a $7.5 billion deal to acquire Lumen Technologies’ telecommunications assets in 20 states via its parent company Apollo Global Management. The operator is looking to make a name for itself as a new, better broadband provider through a laser focus on simplicity and customer service as it steps out into the world as the newly-minted fifth largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the US. The company’s acquired territory includes 6.5 million locations spread across the Midwest and Southeast as well as parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the Northeast. The vast majority of its footprint is currently served with copper, but Brightspeed unveiled a plan to spend $2 billion to deploy fiber to at least 3 million locations over the course of several years. In recent months, it has detailed build plans spanning more than 1 million locations across 17 states. Once fiber is up and running in each market, Brightspeed plans to offer service tiers providing symmetrical speeds of 200 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps or 2 Gbps. Brightspeed will be starting out with around 1.2 million copper customers, around half of which it plans to cover with fiber.