Always thankful when Doug Dawson does a deep dive into broadband news that impacts us in Minnesota. Last week he reported on Lumen (aka CenturyLink)…

Lumen is taking a different path forward than the other big telcos. AT&T continues to build fiber in selected clusters, mostly in cities, rather than concentrate on building entire markets. Frontier, Windstream, and Consolidated are all concentrating on upgrading existing telco DSL networks to fiber.

Lumen has a different path forward. In a recent press release, the company announced a major upgrade to its long-haul fiber routes that cross the country. The company’s main fiber strategy is to beef up the intercity network with plans to add six million miles of fiber to existing fiber routes by 2026. In case you are wondering how there can possibly be six million route miles of fiber in the country – that count is miles of individual fibers. This is a marketing trick that long-haul fiber providers have been using for years to make networks seem gigantic.

The existing Lumen long-haul fiber network came to the company in two acquisitions. The original network came when CenturyLink bought US West, which had earlier merged with Qwest, a major builder of long-haul networks. The network was strengthened when CenturyLink purchased Level 3 Communications.

Maybe good news in Minneapolis…

Lumen is also pursuing a last-mile fiber expansion. In August, the company announced fiber expansion plans in Denver, Minneapolis, and Seattle. The company had a target for this year to pass one million locations with fiber but has fallen a little behind due to supply chain and logistics.

Not as much good news being presented for rural areas…

Unlike the other telcos, Lumen hasn’t been talking much about the upcoming rural grant funding. This doesn’t mean the company might not pursue those opportunities since rural fiber expansion creates monopolies. But major residential expansion does not seem to be a key part of the Lumen plan, at least compared to plans for companies like Frontier, which says it plans to pass 12 million homes with fiber.

Another big unknown is if the company is still trying to sell any of its remaining copper networks like it did with sale of the twenty easternmost states to Apollo Global Management. It would be a more drastic affair to liquidate last-mile customers in the states where US West was formally the Bell company incumbent provider.