- AT&T is aiming to reach 30 million locations with fiber broadband by 2030
- The new joint venture will contribute 10 million locations to the 30 million goal
- AT&T will have 50% ownership of the new JV, with the 2 equity partners collectively owning 50%
AT&T said today it will bring together its two fiber joint ventures — Forged Fiber 37 and Gigapower — under one wholesale open access company. In addition, AT&T is working with two investment firms — Global Infrastructure Partners and CPP Investments — to form the new fiber JV.
The ownership structure is a bit convoluted. Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) is part of BlackRock, and BlackRock is already a partner in Gigapower. CPP Investments is the Canada Pension Plan.
Forged Fiber 37 was created by AT&T as a subsidiary to hold the mass market assets that it acquired from Lumen Technologies in February 2026. AT&T has been indicating for several months that it planned to find one or more equity partners to create a new joint venture with the Forged Fiber 37 assets.
AT&T will have 50% ownership of the new JV, with GIP and CPP Investments collectively owning 50%.
The new JV is expected to close in the first half of 2027. AT&T says it will support its plans to reach more than 60 million fiber locations by the end of 2030. AT&T intends to reach about 50 million of those locations with its owned and operated fiber, and the JV will reach an additional 10 million fiber locations.
“Fiber is the definitive connectivity technology for an AI-driven world,” said AT&T CEO John Stankey. “This JV will bring the unmatched benefits of high-speed, reliable fiber connectivity to more Americans. By partnering with leading digital infrastructure investors, we see significant opportunity to strengthen our scale advantage in fiber, broaden availability of our award-winning services and grow our leadership in converged fiber and 5G connectivity.”
Notably, the JV allows AT&T to expand its fiber service beyond its traditional footprint, and the JV’s network is open access, meaning that AT&T will allow other internet service providers to lease the infrastructure for their own broadband services.
Partnering with GIP and CPP Investments provides AT&T with a capital-light path to further expand its fiber service in major metro areas across 16 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, and Washington.
BNP Paribas Senior Analyst Sam McHugh said the transaction is not much of a surprise, as AT&T had indicated it would seek to find a 50% equity partner for its Lumen assets when that transaction was first announced.
When the JV transaction closes, the venture will serve nearly five million locations and more than one million AT&T fiber subscribers. McHugh said, “This implies that Gigapower will only have been able to build about 800,000-900,000 homes in four years since launch, implying an annual build pace of less than 250,000. In the four years prior to AT&T acquiring its fiber assets, Lumen had been building at an average pace of about 450,000 locations per year.” He said in order to hit the 10 million locations expected for the JV by the end of 2030, the combined build pace will need to roughly double, from about 700k (250k Gigapower, 450k Lumen) to nearly 1.5 million locations per year.
“Presumably, the revamped fiber build engine AT&T has been standing up for the Lumen assets will help get them there,” said McHugh. “If the ramp is successful, it implies that the pressure these assets had been putting on cable operators for the last four years will double over the next four years.”
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