Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the expansion budget of rapidly growing broadband upstart Tachus Fiber. The operator, with help from private equity partner Crosstimbers Capital Group, is set to spend $100 million to expand its footprint in the Houston metropolitan area.
Founded in 2018, Tachus connected its first customer in August 2019 and hit its 10,000 customer milestone in October 2021. As of January 2022, it had 50,000 homes passed in the greater Houston area. By November 2022, it surpassed 25,000 customers and reached 100,000 homes passed in January 2023. It currently has approximately 130,000 passings and 40,000 customers.
The company is now apparently looking to nearly double its footprint with a $100 million investment aimed at adding over 100,000 passings in southwest Houston over the next two years. Work will focus on the areas of Fort Bend and Harris County, including the communities of Sugar Land, Stafford, Mission Bend, among others.
Construction is set to begin in Q4 2023, with the first customers in its new markets activated before the end of the year.
The company is deploying XGS-PON infrastructure. It currently offers symmetrical speed tiers ranging from 300 Mbps to 8 Gbps. Pricing for the former starts at $65 per month.
“Tachus is deploying the most advanced, fiber-optic network and technology for the rapidly changing devices that are creating dynamic demand for bandwidth,” COO Cole Pate said in a statement. “Our fiber-dense, congestion-free and future-proof network will support these and new devices for decades.”
According to the Federal Communications Commission’s latest broadband map, Tachus is up against fiber from AT&T and Frontier Communications as well as cable offerings from Comcast and Charter Communications in the Houston metro area. There are also fixed wireless services available from T-Mobile, Verizon, Rise Broadband and others.
Tachus currently has an edge on the speed front, given AT&T and Frontier currently top out at 5 Gbps.
Another private equity-backed broadband competitor - Ezee Fiber - is also in the mix in the greater Houston area. Here's what Ezee's CEO told us last year when they began a $25 million expansion in Texas.