Metro Bytes: Ripple, Consolidated, US Signal, PPC Fiber

A bit of FTTx M&A plus three expansion projects, two domestic and one international:

Ripple Fiber has made an inorganic move along the eastern Seaboard. They have acquired BridgeNET Fiber, which has been building out FTTH infrastructure in Statesville, North Carolina. The deal gives Ripple Fiber about 3K home passings initially, with expansion to 18K anticipated over time. More importantly, they also now employ the BridgeNET team, giving them boots on the ground in a new region to work with.

Consolidated has launched its Fidium fiber access in another two communities in the upper northeast. In New Hampshire they have expanded into Francestown in the Monadnock region, reaching out to some 600 homes and businesses. And in southern Vermont, they will be expanding Fidium in Readsboro to some 1,100 homes and businesses starting later this week.

In the Midwest, US Signal says it is planning to spend $200M on new fiber and data center infrastructure. The expansion includes 1,000 miles of new dense fiber to boost its network’s ability to meet demand from AI and edge workloads. Meanwhile they will be adding 3MW of power to their data center in Detroit and 6MW to their data center in Des Moines. US Signal is backed by Igneo Infrastructure Partners

And folks over in Greece may have a new FTTx option. PPC Group has launched a new PPC Fiber division, entering the retail bandwidth market. Their initial target is 600K homes and businesses across 13 municipalities in Attica, which is the peninsula containing the Athens metropolitan area. The division will be leveraging PPC FiberGrid, which the company has been rolling underlying infrastructure out not just there but in Thessaloniki and additional key metro areas around the country.

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Categories: FTTH · Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber