- Rightfiber came together with the merger of Ritter and Great Plains
- It’s growing its fiber footprint for both FTTP and for AI hyperscalers
- The company serves small towns and mid-sized cities where its garnering customers from cable operators and telco DSL
Rightfiber is the fiber broadband company that was formed when Ritter Communications and Great Plains Communications came together in September, 2026. Now, Rightfiber, which is backed by Grain Management, is on a mission to build more fiber passings across its 20-state footprint.
Heath Simpson, CEO of Rightfiber, said the company is happy to provide fiber broadband across the gamut, including AI hyperscalers, traditional data centers, wireless carriers, large enterprises, government entities, small businesses, homes and apartments.
Its fiber assets include about 300,000 fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) passings as well as long-haul and mid-haul networks.
“The breadth of our revenue is a diverse stream,” said Simpson.
Now, the company is on a mission to build more fiber broadband. It has entered into a $1.6 billion credit facility led by Fifth Third Bank, to fund continued organic growth as well as potential M&A.
In fact, earlier this month Rightfiber already closed its first acquisition — the purchase of Fastwyre Broadband’s business in Nebraska.
Simpson said, “We have a longstanding playbook for which we evaluate markets for entry across a variety of parameters. And from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, markets or neighborhoods might fall out due to any number of reasons. And of course we continue to improve upon our playbook year after year. We have a proven ability to deploy capital in building fiber networks and generating nice returns.”
Considerations for where to build include a variety of factors such as home density, competition, population size and geology, which determines whether the build will be aerial or buried.
Telecom analysts typically have the view that a new fiber broadband provider does best if it’s the first fiber provider to serve an area. The business model is less desirable if they’re the second fiber provider and it falls off a cliff to be the third.
“I wouldn't disagree with that necessarily,” said Simpson. But he said in the small towns and mid-sized cities where Rightfiber serves customers, it’s more typical to find a telco incumbent offering DSL services and cable operator offering hybrid-fiber-coax (HFC). So, when Rightfiber comes in with fiber, customers are interested in the superior high-speed broadband with symmetrical speeds.
“Fiber is superior to cable,” he said. “A lot of cable operators are trying to tout being fiber-fed or something, but at the end of the day, they don't have the same characteristics as fiber. They don't have the same speed. They're not symmetrical speeds. They don't have the same reliability. So, in all cases, our fiber to the home is going to be vastly superior to either cable or incumbent telcos’ DSL. In our footprint we still have good and ample opportunity to find organic growth opportunities.”
Fierce asked if the Broadband Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) program infringes on its areas. But Simpson said not really because BEAD is focused on the most difficult-to-serve locations. That’s why the government is offering subsidies. Because otherwise, there is no financial incentive to reach these areas.
Fiber builds for hyperscalers
Not only is Rightfiber focused on growth in FTTP, but it’s absolutely tapping into the opportunities to build fiber connections for all the hyperscalers that want to connect their AI data centers.
It’s already working with several hyperscalers to meet their various needs. This might include building a new network, providing a spur off its existing long-haul, or providing a secondary fiber path to give the hyperscaler resiliency. It also has a significant traditional data center business, as well.
Simpson said a lot of long-haul competitors have similar routes. Whereas a regional provider like Rightfiber has alternative routes, which are desirable for a lot of hyperscalers and other enterprises who want dual routes to provide redundancy in case there’s a fiber cut on one of the routes.
Fierce asked if Rightfiber makes an effort to build off-ramps to towns and cities when it’s building a new fiber route for a hyperscaler because apparently, some hyperscalers prefer a clean route from point A to point B with no regard for serving communities in between.
Simspon said, “I'm familiar with the ask, but that's not how we operate. We like to have the ability to off-ramp from a network so that we can serve communities that might have been unserved otherwise along the way.”
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