Bloomberg News reported yesterday that AT&T has asked Morgan Stanley to help the company find partners willing to join it in a joint venture to fund further fiber to the home (FTTH) infrastructure buildouts. Such an FTTH joint venture could be valued at $10 billion to $15 billion, according to the report.
The timing of such a partnership could be a soon as this year but may not occur until 2023, Bloomberg added. Neither AT&T nor Morgan Stanley offered comment to Bloomberg as part of the article.
Moves by large-scale operators to create such joint ventures to fund FTTH deployments are starting to become a trend, despite the influx of government funding for such initiatives in many countries. For example, Vodafone and Altice recently announced such a collaboration in Germany (see “Vodafone, Altice to form joint venture for FTTH in Germany”). Telenor has created a venture called Telenor Fiber in conjunction with investors KKR and Oslo Pensjonsforsikring as well (see “Telenor spins out infrastructure assets to create Telenor Fiber”).
AT&T has touted its fiber expansion efforts, as well as 5G investments, as important to future growth (see "AT&T plans to double fiber footprint").
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
He has written numerous articles in all aspects of optical communications and fiber-optic networks, including fiber to the home (FTTH), PON, optical components, DWDM, fiber cables, packet optical transport, optical transceivers, lasers, fiber optic testing, and more.
You can connect with Stephen on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.