Shenandoah Telecommunications (Shentel) hit a major milestone in Q2 2026, surpassing 100,000 customers in its Glo Fiber growth markets. And for the first time, Shentel's fiber revenue accounted for 51% of its overall revenue.
"Customer demand for higher speed products remains strong, with more than 80% of new residential customers in the quarter selecting speeds of 1-gig or higher, including nearly 19% choosing 2-gig service and almost 5% choosing 5-gig service," CEO Ed McKay said on an earnings call.
Shentel launched Glo Fiber in 2019 and has spent the intervening years expanding its footprint to help offset declining revenue from its legacy cable and ILEC businesses. As of the end of Q2, Shentel had 476,000 Glo Fiber passings and 253,000 incumbent broadband passings.
The operator added a record 6,200 Glo Fiber subscribers in the quarter. Glo Fiber revenue from residential and SMB customers grew from $19.8 million to $26.3 million year on year, though incumbent residential and SMB broadband revenue fell from $42.8 million to $40.3 million.
On the commercial fiber front, McKay indicated Shentel is still eyeing the opportunity to serve data centers in its service area, which includes the hotspots of Virginia and Ohio.
"We have existing fiber and existing conduit in close proximity to some of these data centers. So that gives us an advantage where we can provide the service without having to make a significant capital investment as other providers may," McKay said during the call. "We do have a master service agreement in place with a major hyperscaler that will enable them to potentially buy services in the future. So we're still confident in the opportunity going forward."
Consolidated revenue increased 5.5% year over year to $93.5 million. Shentel's net loss decreased from $9 million to $7.7 million.
Shentel said it expects full year revenue to rise 4.4% at the midpoint year on year to $370 million to $377 million.
Read the full earnings press release here.