Verizon Says Buy of WOW Fiber Assets in Line With Corning, Straight Path Deals as It Eyes 5G

Verizon will buy WideOpenWest's fiber network assets in the Chicago area for $225 million, it announced Tuesday. Verizon said the deal is expected to close in Q1. It said the takeover -- like its deal with Corning to buy $1.05 billion worth of fiber cable (see 1704180042), its similar $300 million buy of Prysmian fiber cable and its $3.1 billion buy of Straight Path (see 1705110052) -- are part of plans to invest in fiber with its eyes on such broadband services as 5G and smart cities. It also said the WOW deal will help it with new services for small and mid-sized business and enterprise customers. Verizon also said the deal includes an additional $50 million for WOW to complete a build-out of its Chicago network the second half of 2017. It said the WOW fiber network already connects to Verizon Wireless macro towers and small cells and will thus reduce its leasing costs. It said the Chicago network, when done, will support more than 500 macro-cell wireless sites and more than 500 small-cell wireless sites. Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche emailed investors Wednesday that the WOW deal means Verizon could be in acquisition mode for yet more fiber assets or for parts of the assets it uses for backhaul purposes, with fiber-centric rural LECs or Zayo potentially being of particular.