T-Mobile Expands Fiber Footprint With Metronet Acquisition (lightreading.com) 6
T-Mobile and investment firm KKR have formed a joint venture (JV) to acquire fiber service provider Metronet. From a report: The fiber provider reaches over 300 communities and more than 2 million homes in 17 states. Metronet is both a pure-play fiber company and independent FTTH operator. In some markets, Metronet delivers residential speeds up to 5 Gbit/s. The acquisition includes Metronet's broadband infrastructure, residential fiber business operations and existing customers. The JV will acquire Oak Hill Capital's existing stake; Oak Hill Capital will re-invest for a minority position and Metronet CEO John Cinelli will retain a minority position after the deal closes.
T-Mobile said it plans to invest nearly $4.9 billion to acquire a 50% equity stake in the JV and 100% of Metronet's residential fiber retail operations and customers, as well as funding of the JV. After the close of the deal, Metronet, based in Evansville, Indiana, will transition to a wholesale service provider for its retail customers. T-Mobile will take on management of residential customer acquisition and support, using T-Mobile's marketing and service model and Metronet's fiber broadband services.
T-Mobile said it plans to invest nearly $4.9 billion to acquire a 50% equity stake in the JV and 100% of Metronet's residential fiber retail operations and customers, as well as funding of the JV. After the close of the deal, Metronet, based in Evansville, Indiana, will transition to a wholesale service provider for its retail customers. T-Mobile will take on management of residential customer acquisition and support, using T-Mobile's marketing and service model and Metronet's fiber broadband services.
Metronet customer (Score:2)
Happy With My 1000Gig Fiber (Score:2)
Happy with T-Mobile for cellular but my home fiber is way faster than anything T-Mobile offers, they support net neutrality, tax is included, and there's no caps.
The "T" stands for Terrible (Score:2, Interesting)
My promotional rate just ran out on Spectrum, so I figured I'd jump ship over to T-Mobile's home internet offering for however long it takes Spectrum to consider me a new customer again. There's some annoying caveats about T-Mobile's home internet service due to being behind carrier grade NAT and the modem/router combo being rather locked down, which preclude the service from being a long term solution, but I figured I'd tolerate them in order to qualify for a discount again on Spectrum.
I tried checking a
Re: (Score:3)
I tried checking availability of T-Mobile's home internet yesterday and presently it's no longer available at my address. According to folks on Reddit, T-Mobile has a limited number of home broadband customers allowed in a specific area around a tower, and once the limit is reached they won't sell any new service.
Yes, that's how all the fixed 5G services (AT&T and Verizon also offer options) work and why they can offer unlimited data. They are selling lower-priority access to excess tower capacity. But they have to be careful not to over-sell a tower otherwise the experience turns to shit for everyone who uses that tower for their connection.
Let the price wars begin (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming... maybe (Score:1)
Supposedly Metronet is rolling out in my city right now. Several months ago I got a flier from them about construction in my area/street), still have not seen it.
Researched their rates and services, and they don't seem much better than Cox (the entrenched mostly-monopoly ISP here). I have been "mostly" happy with Cox. Support is a bit hit-or-miss, pricing (especially on the CATV side) is high, reliability is usually pretty good.
I have been using T-Mobile for many years for mobile and very happy with thei