Lumen expects to pick up its fiber build pace in 2024

Lumen Technologies is hoping to grease the wheels on its fiber build in 2023 after pressing pause on its work late in 2022 and is aiming to exit the year having achieved a quarterly build pace that will allow it to exceed 500,000 new passings in 2024. The operator was originally planning to reach 1.5 million to 2 million locations this year as part of a plan to expand its footprint to 12 million locations over the coming years. But in February 2023, Lumen slashed its overall target to between 8 million and 10 million locations and said it would only reach 500,000 new locations in 2023. Maxine Moreau, president of Lumen’s Mass Markets business, said the reduction in its target was not only designed to ensure better quality passings but also to account for the higher build costs it began to see in 2022. Work on its fiber expansion has now resumed and Moreau said the operator is already seeing improvements in unit yields from its construction division. It has also made headway in a battle against long permitting processes and contractor capacity constraints which previously hampered its build pace. She added it expects “2024 to be a higher build enablement year than 2023,” though did not provide a concrete target for next year.