Consolidated Communications completed fiber deployments covering 8,500 homes across five New Hampshire towns two months ahead of schedule, a feat the company attributed to a combination of planning and good weather.
The builds in Fitzwilliam, Goshen, Jaffrey, Marlborough and Troy stemmed from public-private partnership deals announced in March 2021 and were originally scheduled to be finished in March 2022.
Mary Ellen Player, Consolidated’s VP of Market Strategy, told Fierce it was able to complete the projects so quickly due to a combination of factors. First, she noted the builds were “primarily aerial fiber and we had cooperative weather.” She added the company was also “extremely fortunate to have a solid supply chain thanks to the timing and planning horizon built into public-private partnerships.”
Player also noted the company’s ongoing fiber expansion plan meant it had the labor resources and “proven processes” already in place to help speed the work.
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Consolidated previously announced plans to deliver fiber to 1.6 million locations by 2025. Company CEO Bob Udell said in December it was on track to reach 300,000 locations in 2021 and was targeting an additional 400,000 locations each in 2022 and 2023.
Player highlighted the company’s “robust pipeline” of public-private partnership agreements as another factor which allowed it to “plan, prioritize and pivot resources easily” to more efficiently complete its work in the aforementioned towns. She added this stream of work “continues for 2022, though every build is different.”
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Last year, Consolidated announced public-private partnership deals covering a number of other towns in New England, including Charlestown, Gilsum, Greenfield, Langdon, Marlow, Roxbury, Peterborough and Unity, New Hampshire and Eastbrook, Long Island and Stonington, Maine, among others.
“We are already building our plan for 2023 and continue to speak with towns and communication union districts (CUDs) based on our successful track record so far,” Player concluded.