Rural Roundup: Bluebird, Consolidated, Calix, CenturyLink

As we start the week, here are a few regional fiber expansion projects from the end of the last one that slipped past my nets initially:

Bluebird Network has extended its regional fiber network out in Missouri. They have built out more fiber to serve the business community in Strafford, which lies some 15 miles from the company’s underground data center in Springfield. Bluebird has been investing in growth on multiple fronts, both organic and inorganic, since Macquarie moved in last year.

Consolidated Communications has broken ground on some new fiber up in northern New England. They are building out in the Cheshire County, New Hampshire towns of Dublin, Harrisville, Rindge, Walpole, and Westmoreland, bringing fiber services in range of some 8000 people in the southwestern corner of the state. It’s a $13M project, $4M coming from Consolidated itself and the balance presumably from public sources. The project will complement similar work being done on other fronts in New Hampshire and Maine.

Calix says it has partnered with Tennessee’s Cumberland Connect to bring faster broadband to the company’s customers in the state.  Cumberland Connect is a subsidiary of Cumberland Electric Member Corporation, which serves 80K members across a swath of 5 counties north and west of Nashville.  Cumberland Connect is using Calix’s gear and services to turn up 130+ subscribers per week, and hopes to reach its entire footprint over the next 6 years.  

And CenturyLink is bringing its fiber to the premises reach to another 1,300 homes and businesses in Duplin County, North Carolina with speeds of up to 940Mbps. Duplin County lies between the coast and the I-95 corridor, north of Wilmington and east of Fayetteville. The expansion is supported by NC’s Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology grant program and CenturyLink’s CAF participation.

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Categories: FTTH · Metro fiber