Building Broadband: Comporium helps YEC secure broadband funding; Frontier extends fiber internet to 1M Connecticut locations

Comporium helps York Electric Cooperative secure broadband grant funding
Comporium recently provided York Electric Cooperative (YEC) with 1.9 million from the South Carolina Accelerated Deployment Grant Program (ADGP). The SC Broadband Office administered the ADGP. This funding reimbursed YEC for a part of its material and labor costs to extend gigabit Internet service to underserved areas of YEC's York and Cherokee County footprint. The need for reliable broadband in rural areas became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. YEC partnered with Comporium to address this challenge and extend fiber optics to unserved members. The $16 million project constructed nearly 600 miles of cable between December 2020 and June 2023. This expansion enabled Internet access to more than 5,000 YEC members. Since 2020, Comporium obtained various grant funding to address areas of low density. The company has used these funds in its existing service area to relieve unserved areas through its partnership with YEC.

C Spire lights fiber broadband for Philadelphia, Miss.
C Spire brings fiber broadband to residents in 11 Philadelphia, Mississippi, neighborhoods, providing access to fiber internet speeds up to 8 Gbps. Fiber construction is in progress in the first neighborhood. All construction in this phase is planned for completion within the next ten months. C Spire first launched fiber service to cities across Mississippi in 2014 and has built a network spanning more than 150 communities in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee.

Frontier extends fiber internet to 1M Connecticut locations
Frontier has expanded access to more than 1 million homes and businesses across Connecticut. According to the latest Connecticut Broadband Report, there is an increasing demand for data and higher adoption of speeds across the state. In the past three years, Frontier said it has delivered high-speed fiber internet access to over 1 million homes and businesses statewide, leading to a 475% increase in the state's total fiber locations in 2021.

Intrepid Fiber Networks raises $290M to support open access fiber network build
Intrepid Fiber Networks has secured $290 million in debt financing with Société Générale as Structuring and Coordinating Advisor. The proceeds will support Intrepid’s inaugural deployments in Colorado and Minnesota to over 250,000 premises. Intrepid expects continued growth across its announced markets and is evaluating new market deployments with a vision to build a nationwide open-access network.

Omni Fiber secures $150M in financing from Stonepeak Credit for footprint expansion
Omni Fiber, a regional Fiber Internet Service Provider with operations in over 25 markets in Ohio and Pennsylvania backed by Oak Hill Capital, closed $150 million in debt financing from Stonepeak Credit. Founded in 2022 by management and Oak Hill, Omni Fiber has invested over $250 million in building an XGS-PON fiber network and is on track to reach approximately 200,000 locations by the end of the year. The financing from Stonepeak Credit will fund rapid expansion into more communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Omni Fiber launched its service in late 2022 and now serves residential and business customers in over 25 small and mid-size communities. Construction is in progress in over 15 additional communities, and network design and engineering activities are ongoing in many others. With the extra funding, Omni Fiber expects to accelerate the pace of expansion and announce more communities in the next few months.

telMAX taps Adtran’s Mosaic CP to streamline its fiber broadband expansion
Canadian service provider telMAX is leveraging Adtran’s fiber access technology to extend its high-speed broadband services to more Toronto communities. The Canadian service provider is harnessing Adtran’s Mosaic CP microservices platform integrated with the GLDS BroadHub® subscriber management platform to accelerate its network expansion. The new solution is built on Adtran’s compact SDX 6000 Series of Combo PON optical line terminals (OLTs) and Adtran’s multigigabit XGS-PON optical network terminals. telMAX is extending its network to reach more communities across the Greater Toronto Area. Today, they serve a growing Newmarket, Stouffville, Brooklin, and Aurora customer base.

Tillman Fiber secures $1B for its Florida fiber network
Tillman FiberCo has closed $815 million in committed debt financing to support the deployment of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks throughout Florida, with the new credit facility providing up to $200 million of additional term loans. This new capital infusion follows Tillman Fiber's Florida expansion earlier this year and will enable the rapid deployment of fiber infrastructure across the state. The financing arrangement was led by a syndicate comprising Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Société Générale and Banco Santander. This new capital is in addition to an initial investment of $250 million from Northleaf Capital Partners, a global private markets investment firm, with the potential to invest up to $250 million more as Tillman Fiber scales its operations.