ITCBB-Highline Company Announcement

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ITC Broadband Holdings, which does business under the “Highline” brand name, today announced several major achievements as part of building and growing its nationwide fiber-to-the-premise business.

Over the summer Highline closed on firm equity and debt capital commitments that total several hundred million dollars and that provide us with substantial financial capacity to significantly grow our business both organically and inorganically.

In August, Highline completed the acquisition of USConnect, which provides fiber internet and other communications services to thousands of homes and businesses in parts of Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Kansas and Nebraska.  Upon closing of the acquisition, Highline quickly began extending those fiber networks to reach thousands more additional homes in those states.

Highline is also acquiring one of the largest winners of grant monies in the FCC’s recent Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction (RDOF). The RDOF awards being acquired are in the Upper Peninsula and Thumb regions of Michigan and cover more than 48,000 unserved and underserved houses in those rural areas.  Highline started building its Michigan all-fiber, symmetrical gigabit 6,000-mile network in July, and in October began providing its lightning-fast internet service to customers who have for too long been deprived of real high-speed internet access.

In addition, Highline is investing in another one of the largest winners of RDOF funding that, in combination with its existing cable and fiber business, currently covers more than 75,000 houses in the mid-South region.

In addition to expanding our organic growth and making strategic acquisitions, Highline is partnering with many towns, cities and counties to bring real high-speed internet to scores of unserved, underserved and unhappily served communities across America in order to close the digital divide.  Some of the Public Private Partnerships already announced include the Town of Windsor, Colorado; Pueblo West, Colorado; the city of Waverly Hall, Georgia; and Upson, Pike and Spalding counties in Georgia.  Highline is actively working with electric utility companies and many other towns, cities and counties to bring the benefits of real high-speed internet access to their constituents.

Highline today has more than 130 employees and growing, and its senior leadership team members each have many decades of extensive experience in the fiber, communications infrastructure, cable, wireline, and wireless segments of the industry.

Highline has been in continuous operation in the communication services business for more than 125 years through our ITC heritage.

For all its engineering, design and construction work across the country, Highline partners with one of our stockholders, Atlantic Engineering Group (AEG). AEG has for more than 25 years exclusively engineered and built fiber-to-the-premise networks and has built fiber covering almost 3 million houses and 50,000 miles of fiber networks over more than 110 different projects.

About Highline:

At Highline, we believe everyone should have access to the most reliable, fastest internet speed available – at a fair price, regardless of where you live and work. Highline’s owner ITC has been in business for more than 125 years, and over the last 25 years, Highline has built, owned, and operated fiber networks that have thousands of subscribers. Highline currently serves the communication and internet needs for thousands of residents and businesses in Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska and Texas. Highline is expanding its existing Colorado operations by working with communities to build out state-of-the-art Fiber-to-the-Premise, lightning-fast Gigabit networks. We are currently building a Fiber-to-the-Premise network to provide 1 Gigabit internet service to more than 55,000 homes and businesses in Michigan that are underserved by existing providers.