{"id":161804,"date":"2025-09-22T16:43:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/161804\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T16:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:43:06","slug":"consolidated-rebranding-as-fidium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/161804\/","title":{"rendered":"Consolidated Rebranding as Fidium"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2025 \u2013 Consolidated Communications is changing its name to Fidium, the company\u2019s fiber brand, and is planning to hit about 2 million fiber passings by the end of 2027, the company announced<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about 80 percent of the company\u2019s total footprint. Currently about 60 percent of that has been upgraded to fiber, about 1.56 million passings.<\/p>\n

Consolidated, now Fidium, COO Gaurav Jujena said in an interview Friday said the company had ambitions to drive fiber deeper into its legacy copper footprint after the 80 percent milestone was hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a percent to anchor to, so we know where we\u2019re headed,\u201d he said. \u201cBut just because we have clarity on the 80 percent doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s certain we will only be at 80 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the company was looking at funding from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, largely within its existing footprint, and was also considering expanding fiber beyond its current service areas.<\/p>\n

The company also recently secured more than $1 billion in financing backed by its fiber assets in several states. Jujena said consumer, business and wholesale revenue was included in the tranche.<\/p>\n

Jujena said he couldn\u2019t disclose the company\u2019s tentative BEAD winnings so far. Connected Nation\u2019s BEAD tracker<\/a> has Fidium in line to serve about 24,400 locations based on the draft plans states have published, but doesn\u2019t list the tentative grant funding that would come with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jujena is set to take over as CEO at the start of next year. He\u2019s been with the company for two years and nine months, joining after a nearly five-year stint at Metronet, the regional fiber provider recently acquired by a joint venture between T-Mobile and investment firm KKR.<\/p>\n

Fidium was taken private in late 2024 by Searchlight Capital, which was already a major shareholder.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike some other private equity firms where it\u2019s all about the return, Searchlight is very focused on really making sure that you can run a very good, long-term sustainable business that is focused on the customer,\u201d Jujena said. \u201cWe get the best of them all the time now, and they get the best of us all the time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company has been working<\/a> to discontinue legacy<\/a> voice service on its copper infrastructure, which is costly to maintain and no longer provides competitive broadband speeds. The company offers a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) product via its fiber infrastructure. The Federal Communications Commission, which has to approve the discontinuance of legacy voice services, has sought to expedite the process and make it easier for companies to retire their copper plant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2025 \u2013 Consolidated Communications is changing its name to Fidium, the company\u2019s fiber brand, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[49,48,244,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-161804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}