Charlotte, N.C., July 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brightspeed, the nation’s fourth largest fiber broadband builder focused on empowering more homes with ultrafast, reliable internet, today announced that it has now been awarded more than $213 million in local, state and federal grants and funds to extend its planned fiber broadband network build to more homes and businesses in 12 states. Brightspeed is already investing more than $2 billion to build a high-speed network to more than three million locations across 17 states. These additional funds expand Brightspeed’s build even further.
“Since we launched Brightspeed in 2022, we have been committed to bridging the digital divide and bringing super-fast internet service to millions of families and business owners who have historically lacked quality options for high-speed connectivity — a necessity in today’s hyper-connected world,” said Brightspeed CEO Tom Maguire. “We are thrilled that state and federal officials have the confidence in what we have done so far to provide us this funding that will help us reach even more Americans.”
In the company’s home state of North Carolina, the N.C. Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Division of Broadband and Digital Equity Completing Access to Broadband (CAB) program funds, together with the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology (GREAT) grants awarded to Brightspeed, provide approximately $177 million in funding to help connect approximately 81,000 North Carolina households and businesses across 41 counties to its blazing fast network. This brings Brightspeed’s total commitment in its home state to more than 880,000 fiber-enabled locations.
Brightspeed has been awarded $35.4 million in additional grants and funding in 11 other states that would add another 28,000 locations: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.
“While these additional funds have added significantly more locations to our planned network build, we could ultimately reach 6.5 million homes and businesses within our 20-state footprint,” said Pamela Sherwood, vice president, broadband office at Brightspeed. “The opportunity to bring fiber to more households is huge. We’ll continue to seek out state and federal broadband grant funding to further bridge the digital divide and look forward to pursuing more than $4.7 billion in BEAD funding available within our footprint.”
Brightspeed’s multi-billion-dollar investment in deploying a state-of-the-art fiber network already provides more than 1.2 million homes and businesses in more than 160 communities across 20 states access to ultrafast, reliable connectivity. The company is actively building its fiber broadband network in 17 states to reach more than three million homes.
About Brightspeed
Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. and with assets and associated operations in 20 states, Brightspeed provides broadband and telecommunications services through a network platform capable of serving more than 6.5 million homes and businesses. Our more than 4,000 employees are committed to building a future where more communities benefit from a more connected life, deploying a state-of-the-art fiber network and a customer experience that makes being connected as simple as it should be. For more information, please visit www.brightspeed.com.
