Light Reading reports on Lumen (aka CenturyLink)…

Lumen Technologies had hoped to build fiber connections to 1 million locations by the end of this year. But many analysts don’t think that’s going to happen.

“Lumen is deploying significant capital toward its FTTH [fiber-to-the-home] upgrade program but is having challenges ramping the deployment at the pace it expected. Supply chain, labor, and permitting hurdles have all weighed on enablements,” the financial analysts at MoffettNathanson, a division of SVB Securities, wrote in a note to investors following the release of Lumen’s third quarter results this week. The analysts noted that Lumen lit up 210,000 locations with fiber in its third quarter, just up from the 205,000 it notched during its second quarter.

However, “the company seems likely to miss its full-year enablement target of 1 million … and its goal of exiting the year at a 1.5-2 million run-rate appears out of reach,” the analysts noted.
That’s noteworthy considering other big fiber operators like AT&T and Frontier Communications have reported that they remain on track for their own fiber buildout goals.