Ziply Fiber will build gigabit broadband networks to an additional 14, mostly small and rural markets across Washington and Oregon this year. The company previously announced 22 new fiber markets earlier this spring.
The 36 markets bring the number announced since the service provider acquired Frontier Communications northwest operations in 2020 to 52. Overall, Ziply is engaged in a multiyear expansion in rural and urban settings in its four-state footprint, through a total investment of $500 million.
The new markets – five in Washington and nine in Oregon – will total 38,000 addresses. The Washington communities are Arlington, Monroe, Oak Harbor, Skykomish and Stanwood. In Oregon, the company will build in Cove, Dayton, Elgin, Imbler, Joseph, Lafayette, Mill City, Myrtle Point and Silverton. The goal is to the first sets of customers in each town to be connected before the end of the year.
The broader 52-markets project covers 250,000 square miles. The project will include construction on the core and aggregation network, new fiber, local hubs, offices and hardware.
Fiber covered a bit more than 30% of the territory when the project started. Ziply, which is based in Kirkland, WA, is on pace to cover more than half of the targeted territory by the end of this year and aims to cover more than 80% during the next three years.
Ziply Fiber offers a variety of business and residential services. It will continue to support DSL customers.
“Many of the communities we’re upgrading have never experienced anything like fiber before,” Ziply CEO Harold Zeitz said in a press release. “We’ve seen an increased demand for high-speed Internet to support all the activities we do online, whether that’s online learning, streaming entertainment, or working from home. To support this, we’ve spent the last year investing and constructing a new state-of-the-art fiberoptic network, and we’re thrilled to bring these improvements to rural and urban communities in the Northwest.”
The announcement before this current one — 22 new Ziply Fiber markets – was made in late April. Those communities are in Idaho and Montana in addition to Washington and Oregon. At the time, the company said it had hired more than 400 employees and laid more than 1,000 miles of fiber.
Ziply Fiber was announced in March 2020. It was the ultimate result of WaveDivision Capital’s purchase of Frontier’s northwestern operations for $1.3 billion in 2019.
