6 THE INCOMPAS SHOW I NOVEMBER 1 - 3, 2026 www.bekabusinessmedia.com DAY 1 A year ago, Ezee Fiber had moved beyond its Texas roots into New Mexico, Washington and Illinois. Today, the company operates in six states, with more than 10,000 miles of fiber, about 800 employees and new research quantifying what fiber delivers to the communities it serves. Under CEO Matt Marino, who took the helm in 2023, Ezee Fiber added Oregon and Michigan in 2026. The company now serves Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Illinois and Michigan, each from a regional office staffed by people who live in the area: Houston; Albuquerque; Kent, Wash.; Salem, Ore.; Elk Grove Village, Ill.; and Troy, Mich. In June, Ezee Fiber opened a 30,000-square-foot operations center in Troy. The hub creates more than 50 local jobs and brings symmetrical speeds of up to 8 Gbps to Michigan homes. Illinois, where the company announced a $400 million Chicago-area expansion in 2025, has picked up speed in the suburbs. Ezee Fiber launched service in Elk Grove Village in July. Barrington, Ill., trustees approved a license agreement that gives public agencies free access to the network. In September, the Deerfield Village, Ill., Board approved a buildout expected to reach 95% of homes. In Texas, where it has invested over $250 million, Ezee Fiber closed its acquisition of Tachus Fiber Internet in 2025, becoming the state’s largest independent fiber internet provider. In 2026 it added DayNet, based in Dayton, Texas. Across its six states, the company’s cumulative supply-chain investment now tops $1 billion. The local model remains central to Ezee Fiber. The company now backs that up with more than 750 community events and 350 local partners in Texas and New Mexico alone, plus a 300-plus vehicle fleet and 24/7 local customer service. Beyond fiber-to-the-home, Ezee Fiber offers wholesale and carrier services for ISPs, wireless carriers, hyperscalers and data centers, with enterprise connectivity at speeds up to 400 Gbps. Its network promises 99.99% reliability with no data caps. The business customer base has grown to nearly 700 enterprises, 75 medical providers, 21 educational institutions serving 151 locations, 17 government agencies and eight citywide network infrastructure clients. p Ezee Fiber is a Bronze Sponsor of The 2026 INCOMPAS Show. Ezee Fiber Expands Footprint Across Six States Bluebird Fiber Announces Tera-Core Grain Management, a leading private investment firm focused on digital infrastructure and communications, has completed its strategic combination of Ritter Communications and Great Plains Communications to create Rightfiber. Rightfiber unites two highly respected telecommunications providers, each with more than 100 years of successful history. Rightfiber is now positioned to accelerate fiber broadband expansion, strengthen local communities and deliver exceptional customer experiences across its expanded regional footprint. “Our team is in place, the network is connected, systems integration is in process, and we have successfully funded our growth plan,” said Heath Simpson, CEO of Rightfiber. “Our next chapter is well underway.” Grain has supported both organizations’ growth through long-term investment in fiber infrastructure, operational expansion and broadband accessibility. The combination of the companies creates a stronger platform for continued investment and future growth. In conjunction with the merger, Rightfiber has entered into a $1.6 billion credit facility led by Fifth Third Bank, to fund continued organic growth as well as potential M&A. Rightfiber now serves more than 400 communities across 20 states, with over 300,000 fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) passings through its 28,000-mile fiber network. The company provides expanded capabilities for residential customers, businesses, carriers, hyperscalers, and community partners, and operates as one of the nation’s largest privately held telecommunications and fiber broadband platforms. According to the company, existing services, local support teams, and trusted relationships will remain in place while customers benefit from the expanded capabilities, resources, and investments of the combined organization. Rightfiber also plans to invest in network expansion, technology innovation, and the communities it serves throughout its growing footprint. p Visit Rightfiber at Deal Center Tables 23 and 24. Grain Management Completes Strategic Combination Forming Rightfiber Bluebird Fiber has announced TeraCore, a new optical transport and IP backbone architecture designed to expand network capacity for hyperscalers, data center operators, carriers and large enterprise customers. Tera-Core builds on existing 400G capabilities and establishes a path toward 800G wavelengths, higher bandwidth IP services and future multi-terabit capacity. Bluebird Fiber currently offers 400G-capable routes, with additional routes coming online by the end of 2026 and throughout 2027. “We’re moving into a market where 400G is no longer an edge case,” said Bluebird Fiber COO Joe Meyer. “Customers are increasingly looking at multiple 400G connections as part of a single network design. Tera-Core is designed to scale alongside our customers as their capacity requirements grow.” On the optical side, Tera-Core modernizes Bluebird Fiber's network with colorless, gridless dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology that reduces traditional wavelength assignment constraints and improves flexibility in deploying added capacity. The architecture also includes a roadmap for expanding from C-band to include L-band spectrum, increasing the amount of capacity that can be deployed over existing fiber. At the packet layer, Tera-Core introduces modern routing platforms and silicon architecture designed to significantly expand customer bandwidth capabilities. The terabit-capable IP/MPLS architecture supports higher-capacity connectivity for cloud interconnection, wireless backhaul, carrier services and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Tera-Core is the centerpiece of Bluebird Fiber's network evolution strategy. As customers move from single 400G connections to more complex, highercapacity network designs, the architecture provides greater flexibility to add capacity where and when customers need it. p Bluebird Fiber is located in the Omni Nashville Suite.
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