Consolidated says Fidium rebrand reflects its fiber and digital transformation

Service delivery experience focus

Fiber coverage is only one part of the Fidium brand equation.

As it expands its fiber footprint, Fidium will now focus on the customer delivery experience for consumers and business/wholesale customers.

Specifically, the company will apply the same automation tools and digitize the customer experience for its commercial customers.

“The service delivery experience for consumers will match with commercial in the near future, so it’s the right time to pivot,” Juneja said.

But the ongoing fiber migration also reflects the change in the company culture from being a copper-based telco to a next-gen fiber company.

“The cultural component where one was Fidium, which had everything being automated, and the brand was a fiber brand versus an outdated copper brand,” Juneja said. “It was creating a separation internally, and we wanted to bridge the gap and make sure everyone had the same experience internally.”  

Enabling automation, digitization

To enable automation in the consumer and now business/wholesale side, Fidium has been investing in two main elements: IT infrastructure and digitizing interactions.

On the IT side, it is modernizing the system that holds inventory and customer information. Juneja said as part of that process, it has gone from four to two billing stacks.

The second major shift is to digitize the customer, which began on the consumer side in 2021. This includes how a customer pre-signs up for service and how it communicates with the install schedule date and billing.

“All of that has become digitized as part of the Fidium experience,” Juneja said. “Because we modernized the back-end architecture, we digitized the experience on the front end for the customers.”

This digital transformation also has benefits for Fidium’s customer care, sales staff, as well as business/wholesale. “We also enabled our sales team and customer care teams to do things in an automated fashion, versus doing it on spreadsheets,” Juneja said. “That’s what we mean when we say technology transformation, which we have been undertaking as a company.”

Focus on fiber growth

At the center of Fidium’s growth strategy is fiber. Since 2020, Fidium has invested approximately $1.7 billion in fiber infrastructure, expanding its footprint to more than 700 communities and earning recognition as one of the nation’s top 10 fiber networks by route miles.

In 2026, Fidium will advance from a company with 60 percent of fiber coverage to 70 percent.

On the consumer broadband side, Fidium currently has 78 percent on fiber. By next year, it plans to be 90 percent on fiber.  

“We’re going to continue to grow our fiber base, including passing more locations and customers,” Juneja said. “We’ll continue to accelerate fiber network penetration, which is the number of customers on our fiber network.”

In tandem with the fiber growth, Fidium plans to enhance customer experience in three main ways: stronger leadership, digitization of the experience internally and externally and better processes.

As the service provider looks to create excellence in the organization, it has developed processes to increase coordination and integration. This will be tied with a culture that enables its associates to leverage problem-solving processes.

“We have teams that are working together collaboratively, and we put systems and processes in place so we can move on projects much faster,” Juneja said. “When we operate with excellence, we reduce our operating costs.”

Enhancing business/wholesale

The service provider’s actions on the consumer side for automation and digitization will be leveraged on the business and wholesale unit.

Fidium’s commercial and wholesale business is a key part of the company’s growth. In early 2023, the company enhanced its leadership by naming Zayo and Integra Telecom veteran Dan Stoll as president of the company’s commercial and carrier business. 

“During the first year of the new commercial unit leadership, we had to understand where we are and what we do,” Juneja said. “Later, in 2024, we undertook a transformational journey on commercial to understand what needs to be done and how to grow the business.”

Along with making fiber the centerpiece of the business unit, Fidium focuses on near-net and on-net building opportunities instead of off-net opportunities.

In 2024, Fidium introduced its On Net/Near Net program, designed to improve partners’ and wholesale customers’ experience with new tools and resources. The program expands visibility to the service provider’s 67,000-mile fiber route network, expanding sales opportunities across its service area in over 20 states.

Fidium Partners gives businesses customers access to 250,000+ on-net and near-net buildings across key markets.

With a growing fiber network and processes in place, Fidium also beefed up its sales team with the goal of enhancing its customer list.  

“We hired a new sales team that is really focused on selling to new customers in addition to retaining the logos we already have,” Juneja said. “Previously, our sales team was focused on retaining the older logos, but now we’re going to pursue new businesses as we increase penetration.”

Likewise, Fidium’s wholesale business unit is pursuing new data center opportunities. With data center connectivity demands rising due to the emergence of AI, Fidium recently expanded its network reach and the availability of high-capacity services.

As part of that effort, the company is expanding its fiber network across major data center hubs. Offering a platform that delivers Ethernet and optical wavelengths, Fidium’s fiber footprint serves data centers across the Upper Midwest, Texas, Northern California, and its newest unique route connecting Montreal and Boston. 

“We’re going after new opportunities like data centers,” Juneja said.

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