“As these carriers move into markets, really the decision is do we build our own fiber infrastructure or do we buy it from a provider in place?” Fox said. While Verizon has cited it prefers building out its own fiber networks for backhaul, there will still be situations where it will make more sense to lease fiber from another provider like Cincinnati Bell or Zayo. In December, Cincinnati Bell won a 1,100-site wireless tower backhaul contract, a deal that increased its macro tower market share to over 90%, for example. The telco is already a notable wireless backhaul player in not only Cincinnati but also Hawaii. “And I think that makes it very much an opportunity for us in the mid-term and the long-term.” Backhaul bonanzaĬincinnati Bell’s aggressive fiber builds also put it into the front running for new macro and small cell backhaul deals.

“We have that both and we will have that in Hawaii also,” Fox said. In the third quarter, Hawaiian Telcom enabled fiber in 1,000 additional consumer households on O'ahu, including success-based bulk multidwelling units and greenfield single-family homes, bringing total NGN households to 205,000, or approximately two-thirds of total marketable households on O'ahu.įox said that Cincinnati Bell will be in a similar fiber-centric situation in Hawaii when it completes its acquisition of Hawaiian Telcom later this year. The agreement states it must complete the build-out within four years of the merger closing.Įven before Cincinnati Bell formally enters Hawaii, Hawiian Telcom has continued to advance its own current fiber network expansion efforts. In its Fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) markets, 17% of its customers can receive up to 50 Mbps speeds.Īs part of its agreement with Hawaii’s Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ (DCCA) Cable Television Division (CATV) to get conditional approval for the acquisition, Cincinnati Bell has agreed to invest $20 million to improve and build out Hawaiian Telcom’s next-gen fiber network statewide. Today, Cincinnati Bell which now reaches 70% of Cincinnati’s homes and businesses with fiber, has enabled 53% of its customer base to get gigabit speeds.

RELATED: Cincinnati Bell reaches 70% of Cincinnati’s homes, businesses with fiberįox added that with “any technology like 5G, you need a very, very strong redundant terrestrial network, and that’s what we have.” “I think it’s going to be very hard to in the near-term offset our core products, such as fiber based bandwidth.” “We view it is more of an opportunity than a risk,” Fox said during the earnings call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.

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