Lumen’s CFO hints again at consumer fiber sale as part of enterprise-focused shift
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Rumors continue to swirl about the future of Lumen’s consumer fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) business as the company pivots towards being a business and wholesale service provider.
According to a recent Bloomberg report citing people close to the matter, AT&T is negotiating a deal to acquire the fellow telco’s consumer fiber business.
The Bloomberg report said that AT&T and Lumen are in exclusive discussions about a transaction valuing the unit at more than $5.5 billion. The terms of any deal that isn’t finalized could change, or a deal might not happen at all.
However, Lumen’s CFO, Chris Stansbury, told investors during its first quarter earnings call that the company could not address any reports about the unit.
“While we will not comment directly on the details of the rumors, we've consistently said we're proud of the consumer fiber platform we've built,” he said. “However, the investment and return profile do not align with our desire to focus on the enterprise connectivity and services market.”
He added, “We have no news to report now, but we will update the market when appropriate.”
Prioritizing profitable fiber builds
While Lumen could not cite any specific new fiber build plans, the company maintains it will prioritize expansions that give it a positive return on investment.
Lumen’s FTTH network has been expanding, aiming to reach 12 million locations.
Initially, Lumen planned to reach 1.5 to 2 million new locations in 2023 and 12 million in the coming years. Subsequently, this target was adjusted to 500,000 new locations in 2023 and 2024, with an overall goal of 8 to 10 million locations.
“The additional builds are progressing nicely. We're confident that we'll continue to see expansion there, and the economics will continue to look similar to what we saw in the first round,” Stansbury said. “The team is doing a fantastic job building on schedule, if not a bit ahead at this point, and on budget.”
Fiber broadband growing
As Lumen continues to build fiber to more homes, the provider adds new subscribers, a trend that continued into the first quarter.
The company’s fiber broadband revenue grew 22.9% year over year and now represents 45% of Mass Markets' broadband revenue.
During the quarter, Lumen added 101,000 fiber-enabled homes, bringing its total to approximately 4.3 million as of March 31.
It also added 39,000 Quantum Fiber customers, bringing the total number of fiber subscribers to over 1.1 million. Fiber ARPU was $64.
“At the end of the first quarter, our penetration of legacy copper broadband was approximately 8%, and our Quantum Fiber penetration stood at approximately 26%,” Stansbury said.
However, ongoing losses of legacy copper-based DSL and voice services continued to drag as Mass Market segment revenue declined 5.9% to $658 million.
Total company revenue was $3.18 billion, compared to $3.290 billion for the first quarter of 2024.
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Sean Buckley
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