T-Mobile pursues more pure play fiber assets with its U.S. Internet acquisitionBut the deal isn\u2019t enough to give T-Mo an edge over its competition, said New Street ResearchThe operator is also doubling down on fiber through BEAD<\/p>\n
T-Mobile is acquiring Minnesota-based ISP U.S. Internet<\/a>, marking another notch on its fiber broadband toolbelt.<\/p>\n Unlike T-Mobile\u2019s acquisitions of Lumos<\/a> and Metronet<\/a> \u2013 both of which are officially closed \u2013 the U.S. Internet buy has an under-radar-vibe. T-Mobile hasn\u2019t published a press release on the deal, but reports<\/a> said U.S. Internet customers received a letter earlier this month stating they\u2019ll \u201cbecome a T-Mobile customer on or after September 2.\u201d<\/p>\n Financial terms of the deal are unknown, and Fierce has reached out to T-Mobile for more information. But the operator has previously indicated more M&A moves are on the horizon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe like pure play fiber assets<\/a>,\u201d said T-Mobile COO Srini Gopalan on the company\u2019s Q2 earnings call, noting the carrier is \u201cvery open\u201d to fiber investments.<\/p>\n T-Mobile\u2019s fiber game plan<\/p>\n U.S. Internet seems to fit the pure play bill. The ISP started out as a Wi-Fi provider for the city of Minneapolis but has offered fiber internet since 2010. Minnesota is also one of several states where T-Mobile is expanding its fiber network through open access partnerships. For instance, it\u2019s working with Intrepid<\/a> in Colorado and Minnesota, Si-Fi Networks<\/a> in California and Tillman<\/a> in Florida.<\/p>\n T-Mobile as of June has fiber available to more than 500,000 households<\/a> across 10 states, and it is aiming to reach 12-15 million fiber locations in the coming years with the help of Lumos, Metronet and open access deals.<\/p>\n The U.S. Internet transaction would see T-Mobile gain over 192,000 fiber locations, according to New Street Research. But it\u2019s not enough to give the operator an edge over AT&T and Verizon, which both have larger and more established fiber footprints.<\/p>\n \u201cT-Mobile\u2019s converged footprint remains a fraction of the other 2 large wireless operators,\u201d said NSR analyst Vikash Harlalka in a note today. \u201cThese small acquisitions aren\u2019t going to move the needle by much.\u201d<\/p>\n Furthermore, most of U.S. Internet\u2019s footprint overlaps with at least one other cable or fiber provider. Harlalka noted 96% of the ISP\u2019s locations overlap with Comcast and 71% overlap with Lumen\u2019s home fiber territory (soon to be acquired by AT&T<\/a>).<\/p>\n Competition is running rampant, but T-Mobile\u2019s fiber train keeps chugging along through acquisitions as well as federal funding. T-Mobile, along with Louisiana-based fiber companies Swyft Fiber and REV, is part of a consortium<\/a> that scored $378 million<\/a> from the state\u2019s new BEAD awards. The funds aim to cover over 68,000 of roughly 128,000 underserved Louisiana locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T-Mobile pursues more pure play fiber assets with its U.S. Internet acquisitionBut the deal isn\u2019t enough to give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[62320,64,63,2711,2940,24956,62319,18370,237,26619,62321,13637,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-82517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-access-and-deployment-bead","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-broadband","12":"tag-broadband-equity","13":"tag-fiber-broadband","14":"tag-fiber-deployment","15":"tag-fierce-network-homepage","16":"tag-internet","17":"tag-mergers-and-acquisitions","18":"tag-new-street-research","19":"tag-t-mobile","20":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}