AT&T Inks Fiber Expansion Deal With 4 Open-Access Providers

AT&T announced on Monday wholesale agreements with four commercial open-access fiber broadband providers.

The deals, which will involve AT&T’s existing Gigapower JV with investing firm BlackRock, is intended to help the company grow its fiber network offerings.

The announcement comes as fellow wireless providers race to expand their own fiber networks — Verizon Communications spent $20 billion to acquire pure-play fiber provider Frontier Communications last Thursday, while T-Mobile inked a deal to buy a 50% stake in the fiber operator Lumos in April.

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AT&T will now begin construction on several expansion projects in Texas, Florida and Minnesota with its new partners: Boldyn Networks, Digital Infrastructure Group, Prime Fiber and Uniquity.

“Each company AT&T is working with was selected because they provide opportunities to expand AT&T Fiber distribution to new service areas without existing fiber options,” the company wrote in its release. “As these providers add fiber locations, AT&T will evaluate where it wants to offer AT&T Fiber.”

AT&T didn’t specify the scale of its initial projects, but said it is on track to pass its goal of 30 million locations with fiber by the end of 2025.

Currently, the telecommunications giant serves more than 8.8 million fiber customers and passes 28 million total consumer and business fiber locations, according to a press release.

“In new service areas, Gigapower is ramping well,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said in a statement. “We’re targeting additional geographies for growth with the joint venture and other commercial open-access agreements. Customers tell us they want a high-performance wireless and broadband experience from a single provider, and AT&T is best positioned to serve this growing need.”

AT&T and BlackRock have so far announced plans to build in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas.