Grande Communications expands in Texas

Grande Communications today announced it is expanding its residential triple-play in Texas by acquiring Advantex Communications. The acquisition gives Grande 60,000 more homes in the eastern and northern Dallas metropolitan area and adds 400 fiber miles and switching infrastructure to its metro-area network assets.

Grande Communications runs a hybrid coax, twisted-pair and fiber network throughout seven Texas metropolitan areas. Running fiber feeds to 24-home clusters, the neighborhood nodes aggregate voice, high-speed data and broadcast video, sending the feeds off to each home in the cluster over both coax and copper wire. The architecture allows Grande to utilize existing cable and telephone wiring within older homes. "We can build out whole communities," said Grande CEO William Morrow. "We’re not just limited to new developments."

Grande also runs a regional network of metro and long-haul fiber, which it uses to link its neighborhood nodes, but also wholesales to national carriers. With the Advantex acquisition, Grande now passes 360,000 homes and multi-dwelling units with its local access fiber and transport fiber in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Grande has been on an acquisition spree in the south for the last year. In March, Advantex bought 3000 fiber route miles from C3 Communications and acquired the rights to provide Internet and voice services over electric utility TXU’s Texas-wide communications network.

Now with 100,000 customers and a penetration rate of almost one third of homes passed, Morrow said Grande will look to grow organically, building out to neighborhoods in 42 franchises it now has permission to service.