Key Points
- AT&T closed its $5.75 billion, all-cash deal for Lumen’s mass-market fiber business, adding about 1 million subscribers.
- The acquisition expands AT&T’s fiber reach by 4M+ locations across 11 states and boosts buildout speed.
- AT&T plans to pair fiber with wireless bundles, supporting its goal of 60 million fiber locations by 2030.
AT&T has completed its acquisition of substantially all of Lumen’s Mass Markets fiber business, closing a $5.75 billion all-cash transaction that was first announced last year.
The deal will allow AT&T to scale up its fiber footprint by adding Lumen’s 1 million subscribers, the company said in a press release on Monday. AT&T also said the deal will allow it to offer better bundles that pair land-based broadband offerings with its wireless phone service, which is the third-largest wireless offering in the U.S. by subscriber count, behind T-Mobile and Verizon.
The completion of the transaction means Lumen subscribers are now officially AT&T customers, the company affirmed.
“America’s largest network is the best positioned in our industry to serve even more consumers, both in the home and on the go,” John Stankey, the CEO of AT&T, said on Monday. “AT&T Fiber…will be available to millions more people as we expand the service in 32 states. This investment will create good-paying jobs, boost U.S. connectivity and bring the benefits of high-speed connections to more communities across the country.”
AT&T said its current fiber penetration is around 25 percent of its broadband footprint — the company still uses older, copper-based technology in most parts of the country, though its fiber buildout continues on a rolling basis.
In addition to subscriber growth, the transaction expands the scale of AT&T’s fiber network by adding more than 4 million customer locations across 11 states. AT&T also gains access to Lumen’s fiber construction capabilities in those regions, which the company said will accelerate its ability to build out fiber infrastructure outside of its traditional wireline operating areas.
As a result, AT&T said it expects to increase the pace of fiber deployment in these territories, supporting its broader goal of reaching more than 60 million total fiber locations by the end of 2030. The company defines fiber locations as both consumer and business sites that are either passed with fiber or served through commercial open-access providers.
On the element of bundling, AT&T said the Lumen acquisition will allow it to further offer packages that pair broadband Internet with wireless products, giving it a roadmap to acquiring more high-value, convergent subscribers.
AT&T reiterated that the transaction does not change the financial guidance it provided alongside its fourth quarter 2025 earnings results. That guidance assumed an early 2026 close of the Lumen transaction and incorporated the expected impact of the acquired assets.
