Last week, Charter announced a $1.3 billion investment in rural Texas. The announcement was made during a Texas State Technical College event.
Here you have the details of the news.
Charter’s $1.3 billion investment in Texas will use fiber blend, DOCSIS
In Harlingen, Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated Charter Communications’ announcement that it would invest $1.3 billion to improve and expand internet infrastructure and technologies throughout Texas.
This investment will fund the expansion of rural broadband service to underserved and unserved homes and small businesses in Texas and help Charter Communications deliver symmetrical, multi-gigabit speeds across the state.
Governor Abbott said, “Texas is on the verge of bringing broadband to every corner of the state, but we can’t do it without our industry partners. »
Abbott added: “The $1.3 billion investment Charter announced today in infrastructure and technology will help bring broadband access to more Texans. With this new investment, Texans who live in the vast and beautiful expanses of our great state will have the same access to the Internet as those in big cities.
“This is an essential tool for keeping our economy booming, children learning, and families connecting to the world’s best healthcare facilities.” I thank Charter for investing in the future of Texas and for all the work they are doing right here in the Rio Grande Valley.
The money Charter invested, $700 million, will be spent on network upgrades, of which Charter will bear all expenses.
Part of the total $620 million cost of the fiber deployments will be covered by Charter’s remaining $420 million investment, with the remaining $200 million covered, largely, by financing as part of more of a billion dollars that the company won under the RDOF. rural broadband financing program in 2020.
Charter has allocated $700 million to its existing network as part of its network evolution plans, which involve upgrading the company’s entire DOCSIS/hybrid fiber coaxial footprint by 2025 to facilitate multi-gigabit and symmetrical speeds.
Last year, Charter revealed its ambitions to evolve the network in three phases.
To increase upstream speeds – a concern for cable companies as telcos deploy fiber optic broadband – the company this year undertook Phase 1 of the project, which involves moving to a high-distribution approach, which dedicates more spectrum in the coaxial part of the HFC network to the upstream path. The company intends to deliver speeds of 2 Gbps downstream and 1 Gbps upstream with this infrastructure.
The second phase, planned for the following year, will involve the deployment of a distributed access architecture (DAA), DOCSIS 4.0, and high splits supporting 5/1 Gbps speed.
The same upgrades as for the second phase are part of the third phase, planned for 2025. It also includes increasing the spectrum in the coaxial part of the link to 1.8 GHz. On the network, the company intends to provide 10/1 Gbps service.
The company did not specify which phase(s) of the network evolution plans the Texas upgrades would fall under.
With Charter’s ability to quickly connect a fiber optic station from the DAA neighborhood node to consumers who need fiber broadband, the company’s DAA deployment will also pave the way for fiber on demand.
In its announcement, Charter said, “Additional grants are being allocated for rural broadband expansion in Texas, and Charter looks forward to the opportunity for significant additional investments to close the digital divide in the Lone Star State . »
Although the program’s budget is limited to $120 million, the state received applications totaling $180 million.
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