WideOpenWest (WOW!) wasted no time getting to work on a recently announced fiber expansion effort, naming Seminole County, Florida, as the location of its first greenfield deployment.
The company said it plans to drop at least $60 million on the build, aiming to deliver service to more than 60,000 homes once work is finished. WOW! said work in the county has already begun.
Seminole County is located northeast of Orlando, which is situated toward the eastern coast of the state. The operator already serves Pinellas County, near Tampa on the west coast of Florida and Panama City in the state’s panhandle area.
Raymond James analyst Frank Louthan wrote in a note to investors the Seminole County market “overlaps with Charter and Lumen/AT&T xDSL, and we believe it is a good suburban demographic north of the Orlando market. While Lumen may target the Orlando market for additional fiber builds, we expect this area will be left out, especially once they learn that there is already a fiber-based competitor in the area.”
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WOW!’s decision to target Seminole comes as it undertakes a multi-year greenfield expansion effort with the goal of reaching 200,000 new locations by 2025. Those plans are in addition to continued investments in edge outs and business services.
The operator said it plans to announce additional greenfield markets later this year.
Louthan estimated the Seminole project will take “about two years to complete.” He noted the 60,000-location target there will get WOW! nearly 30% of the way to its broader 200,000-location goal.
“We believe WOW is going to be well-positioned to drive value through competitive sub growth over the next couple of years, and then is a likely candidate for what we see as an industry roll-up in 2024 or beyond,” he concluded.