Led by Tier 1 telcos AT&T and Verizon, a new M&A wave in the fiber broadband market is rising. AT&T is moving to acquire Lumen’s FTTH business, while Verizon is going to acquire Frontier. Each of these deals will significantly expand these Tier 1 How to understand the changes and the role of fiber and other technologies.
However, Tier 1 providers aren’t the only ones making acquisition moves. Consolidation in the regional fiber broadband market is expected to continue accelerating over the next year. According to a survey conducted by AlixPartners last fall, more than 400 small fiber providers in the U.S. “are ripe for picking by investors or larger fiber companies when the inevitable major fiber consolidation wave occurs.”

In this podcast, we talked with Andrej Danis, partner and managing director for AlixPartners, about the ongoing consolidation of the broadband market and how providers are positioning themselves as either buyers or sellers.

Key Moments in This Episode

Opening

0:04 Introduction of our guest

0:27 Broadband service provider M&A
Andrej Danis sees the telecom industry at the forefront of a more consolidated roll-up of properties.

3:04 M&A drivers
How service providers are positioning themselves as either buyers or sellers.

5:45 New customer approaches
How Verizon/Frontier and AT&T/Lumen megadeals will drive new customer service approaches.

7:36 Acquisition dynamics
Smaller providers could be rolled up to sell to larger providers.

11:23 Permitting challenges
The need for the current administration to address the issue.

13:18 Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) uncertainty
How to understand the changes and the role of fiber and other technologies.

17:26 Public-private broadband partnerships
How underserved communities need to be creative to get connected.

20:12 Final Thoughts/Closing

About our guest:
Andrej Danis, partner and managing director for AlixPartners
Andrej leads the Americas Telecommunication practice at AlixPartners with experience in helping companies solve operational and strategic challenges, both as an internal manager and as a consultant in different functions across America and Europe. His focus is on large-scale transformation projects in the telecommunications space, and he has experience leveraging new technologies and platforms to accelerate transformations and improve operational and organizational metrics.

He also helps companies address upcoming investment challenges such as 5G deployment, fiber roll-out, and fixed mobile convergence. Andrej has also acted as a consultant for different telecommunication areas, including cloud-based communication, sub-sea fiber, wireless network strategy, and CLEC transformation. Before joining AlixPartners, he held roles at Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems, where he was involved in transformational programs for nationally affiliated telcos.

About the Podcast
In the Lightwave Broadband Pulse podcast, we address the key issues affecting the optical and broadband industry segments. Join us every week for insights from industry leaders on these topics. Visit our website at www.lightwave.com and listen here.