EMBARGOED UNTIL 4/1/2024
A consortium of fiber network and edge providers has announced a massive deal to rapidly build fiber to every American doorstep and acquire all existing fiber transmission and distribution infrastructure in the United States.
According to informed sources, the deal is being led by fiber infrastructure owners AT&T, Verizon, and Alphabet along with edge providers Meta and Amazon along with limited participation from Netflix.
Cable companies, publicly owned and coop networks and smaller fiber network owner/operators will be offered buy outs of their existing footprints on highly favorable but time limited acquisition terms, according to sources close to the negotiations leading up to the deal.
The consortium will finance fiber construction and operations with cash contributions and long term bonds backed by the consortium members along with participation private equity firms. State and local governments and railroads will be offered fiber connectivity at no cost in exchange for right of way access and waiver of all permitting.
To alleviate potential federal anti-trust concerns, the consortium will be organized into five independent regional companies closely aligned with the service territories of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) formed after the 1982 breakup of AT&T.
“In 2005, then AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre said no one should ride the pipes for free. He’s right. That’s why we’re buying all the pipes and will bring long overdue fiber connections to most every American doorstep,” the consortium said in a statement. “Doing so is consistent with the public policy intent of 1996 Telecommunications Act to timely bring advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans.”
The consortium – called Fiber Everywhere -- noted that policy goal remains unrealized nearly three decades later. “We recognize the difficult incremental trajectory the nation has been on for the last two decades that is unlikely to attain this goal anytime soon and bring American households from 20th century copper and coax built for analog voice telephone and cable TV services to fiber for 21st century Internet protocol-based advanced telecommunications.”
Fiber Everywhere will request Congress reallocate $42.5 billion appropriated in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 for advanced telecommunications infrastructure directly to the consortium regional operating companies to replace deteriorated utility pole infrastructure and install underground conduit.
The consortium said the deal obviates the need for an alphabet soup of dozens of federal and state subsidy programs and will bring an end to unproductive and fractious fighting over what constitutes “broadband” and where it’s available as plotted federal and state “broadband maps.”
“Maps are meant to serve as a road map to a destination,” Fiber Everywhere stated. “With this deal, the consortium offers the United States a true road map to a bright digital future.”
DISCLAIMER: The foregoing is occurring in a parallel universe under the multiverse concept of theoretical physics. Universal fiber service not available in all areas in the current universe.
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