Friday Roundup: Lumen, FirstDigital, Calix, DZS

One subsea move, and three network expansion moves out in the rural US – one inorganic and two organic:

Lumen has had a busy week, and yesterday unveiled some expansion news under the Atlantic. The international carrier has launched a new subsea route by leveraging the Dunant subsea cable. Dunant connects Virginia with France, thus offering Lumen some additional diversity as well as capacity. Lumen also recently announced fiber expansions in France and Spain as well as the sale of its Latin American business.

Out west, FirstDigital Telecom has a major new investor. Apollo Global management has invested $200M in preferred equity in the fiber-based carrier. The funds will be directed toward the company’s growth, including helping fund First Digital’s other news today, which was the closing of the purchase of Veracity Networks out in Utah.

Calix says its technology has helped Firefly Broadband with operational efficiency. Firefly’s deployment of Calix’s Deployment Enablement Services are credited with an 80% reduction in repeat truck roles on installations, cutting OPEX and inspection times as well. Firefly, the connectivity arm of the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, is looking to add 15,000 subscribers by the end of this year.

And DZS has teamed up with Irby to help power the rural broadband efforts of Craighead Electric Cooperative Corporation. CECC’s empower subsidiary operates last mile fiber out in rural Arkansas, leveraging DZS’s gear and Irby’s orchestration to connect some 30,000 people. They have 3,500 route miles of fiber connecting 10K locations, mostly built out with the help of CAFII funds, with more coming from RDOF awards.

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Categories: FTTH · Mergers and Acquisitions · Telecom Equipment · Undersea cables