Hawaiian Telcom’s public-private fiber broadband plan takes challenging terrain and rural limitations head-on

Hawaiian Telcom has set a goal for its fiber broadband network: to make Hawai‘i the first fully fiber-enabled state by 2026.

Hawaiian Telcom has been laying the groundwork for this achievement for over a decade. By the end of 2026, the company will complete Hawai‘i’s only all-fiber network.

The service provider’s effort has already reached 60% of Hawai‘i’s households and businesses, with the remaining 40% on track to be completed by the end of next year.

Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, Kaua‘i, and Maui have been fully fiber-enabled. Hawai‘i Island and
O‘ahu will be fully fiber-enabled by the end of 2026.

But the service provider is not taking the easy route to get its fiber network built.

Addressing challenging terrain, logistics
With six major islands, each with its own population, Hawai‘i faces logistical challenges in deploying fiber and other equipment across the islands.

Unlike the mainland states, which allow more direct travel between states, Hawaiian Telcom must ship equipment to them by ship. Shipping a container to Hawai‘i costs over $10,000. The company then must wait a week, and that's just from the West Coast.

“Our state imports 90% of all goods,” Thune said. “So, there's a ship that leaves Oakland, Los Angeles, or Long Beach pretty much every day. It takes four days to come here and another two days to offload everything.”

He added, “If I want to ship stuff between islands, that's another two or three days.”

One of the challenging islands to build out broadband on is Lānaʻi, most of which is owned by Larry Ellison, cofounder and chairman of Oracle.

However, deploying personnel and equipment to Lānaʻi to install new fiber requires Hawaiian Telcom to have a strategy that accounts for costs and time.

“A barge only goes there once a week, and there are only three hotels, including two Four Seasons that are about $1000 a night,” Thune said. “If I'm going to send a bunch of line workers and cable splicers to Lanai, it would be unaffordable to stay at The Fort, so we must plan months.”

He added, “I don't have a line truck or a bucket truck just sitting around, so I got to plan that out too.”

Another challenging area is the village of Kalaupapa. The 2,000-foot-high sea cliffs at Kalaupapa on Molokai's north shore are among the tallest in the world. Formed roughly 1–1.5 million years ago by the collapse of a volcanic mountain, they isolate the flat Kalaupapa Peninsula—a former leprosy settlement—from the rest of the island. 

Thune explained that “the only way you can get to Kalaupapa is on an airplane and you must be invited.”

In addition to reaching these locations, Hawaiian Telcom must address unique environmental challenges that can cause delays, including landslides, volcanic eruptions, and Kauai's diverse microclimates. 

Rainfall is also an issue. “From the airport where it gets 20 inches of rain a year, we can drive eight miles, and we'll go to a place that is the wettest location in the whole United States that gets 400 inches a year,” Thune said.

Enhancing rural broadband

Regardless of the challenges it faces, Hawaiian Telcom maintains it is on track to complete a significant portion of its fiber build by the end of the year. 

“Hawai‘i has six major islands and some of them have way more people than others,” Thune said. “We have one island called the Big Island, and we can shove all the smaller islands into it and still have plenty of space left.”

He added that “we'll have two islands left to finish at the end of 2026, which are Hawaii Island and O‘ahu, so by the end of this year, we'll be over 70% done.”

As the primary ILEC operator in Hawai‘i, the company served its remote rural markets solely with traditional copper wireline technology, leaving residents and businesses with few alternatives beyond Spectrum's phone and cable TV services.

“It's all copper,” Thune said. “There is Spectrum on those islands, but nobody could get much. And now the island of Lāna‘i can get 3 gigs.”

As Hawaiian Telcom has continued to expand broadband into the state’s rural areas, Clearfield has played a key role.

With Clearfield’s fiber management solutions at the core of its network, Hawaiian Telcom has already reached more than 60% of homes across Hawai‘i with fiber, spanning all major islands and tackling some of the state’s most challenging terrain. 

By the end of 2025, Hawaiian Telcom had installed over 1,000 Clearfield passive optical network (PON) cabinets. A wide variety of Clearfield cassettes, splitters, wall boxes, central office panels and frames, and patch cords round out the solution set that enables high-density fiber distribution across Hawaii’s uniquely diverse landscapes.

With many of the larger cabling management providers, such as Amphenol, CommScope, and Corning, catering to Tier 1 telcos, Clearfield has become a growing alternative for the Tier 2 service provider market. 

“We faced logistic and manufacturing challenges just like everyone else coming out of COVID, but even now with these huge AI demands, all of the big players like Anphenol, CommScope, and Corning are catering to the huge guys,” Thune said. “No matter what they say, they're going to miss their lead times for us. However, Clearfield has a straightforward product that’s cost-effective, they can turn stuff around in weeks, and the great thing is it's like a Toyota in that it just works.”

State government collaboration 

A key element supporting Hawaiian Telcom’s fiber broadband efforts is the State of Hawai‘i itself, which has become a collaborator. 

While permitting has been a challenge for broadband operators expanding fiber, Hawaiian Telcom’s relationship with the state has enabled it to accelerate its build. 

“Now, I do have permitting in like one or two places that are more challenging to overcome, but I have a great relationship with the Lieutenant Governor's office,” Thune said. “In fact, we just met with her recently, and her staff asked us what we can do to expedite the permitting process, cut through a bunch of red tape.” 

Likewise, its fiber build efforts are also getting the attention of the State of Hawai‘i's Department of Transportation (HDOT). 

For example, as Hawaiian Telcom trials a fiber etching solution, HDOT has been asking the telco how it can expand its fiber network to support its emergency systems. “We're trying a new fiber etching solution. They are less concerned about permitting and more concerned about how to turn up more micro cell towers to give people 911 connectivity because there are tons of calls that come in for, ‘I'm stranded near this waterfall, and I need to be rescued.’”