Brightspeed Faces Bankruptcy and Needs to Raise $3 Billion

According to the Wall Street Journal Pro subscription service, broadband provider Brightspeed is preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing as early as December. Sources say that the company’s liquidity is decreasing and it is difficult to obtain new capital from existing lenders. Brightspeed is supported by Apollo Global Management, but this private equity giant is clearly unwilling to provide funding for the company anymore. Brightspeed is also struggling to raise capital from new investors through asset-backed financing tools secured by its new fiber optic network subscription cash flow.

Debt exceeds $10 billion, cash continues to decline

In early October, Bloomberg reported that advisors to Brightspeed’s creditor group had signed a confidentiality agreement to discuss how to deal with the company’s debt of over $10 billion. In September, Bloomberg reported that Brightspeed warned investors about doubts about its ability to continue operating. New Street Research analyst David Barden stated on October 19th that they believe the company needs to raise approximately $3 billion to support until 2027 while addressing the issue of ‘going concern’. Although Brightspeed is a private company, New Street has some understanding of its finances. Barden stated that Brightspeed’s cash at the end of the second quarter was $1.2 billion, lower than the $1.8 billion in the first quarter and the $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025; By comparison, its total outstanding debt is $11.6 billion.

Fiber optic penetration rate is lower than expected

It is currently unclear how Brightspeed got into this predicament, as the company did not respond to Fierce’s questions and former employees remained silent. Andrej Danis, Head of Digital Infrastructure and Telecommunications for AlixPartners in the Americas, told Fierce that Brightspeed is likely not achieving the expected fiber penetration rate. He said that the company is excessively building among vulnerable groups with incomes lower than the US average; The hope of achieving an average revenue per user (ARPU) of $60 or more has not become a reality because people do not have the money to pay such high fees for fiber optic, even if they like it. Danis also pointed out that as Brightspeed covered its copper cable network with fiber optic, the company lost revenue from DSL. He said, in simple terms, the decline in voice revenue is faster than expected, while the uptake of fiber optic has not arrived.

Fierce asked why wealthy private equity firms like Apollo did not directly rescue Brightspeed. Danis said that Apollo is usually a financial engineer, and investing in equity rather than credit and debt is never a good thing. For Apollo, the question is: are you willing to invest all of these shares or are you willing to exit? Do you believe that you can really recover the funds?

Once the third largest fiber optic construction company in the United States

Brightspeed was established in 2022 from assets acquired by Lumen Technologies. The company has been actively covering Lumen’s old copper cable network with fiber optics, which is very expensive. The competition pressure between Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and Starlink broadband has also made the situation worse. But in April 2026, Brightspeed claimed to be the third largest fiber optic builder in the United States, second only to AT&T and Verizon. In April, Brightspeed announced that 2026 will be the second consecutive year the company has built over 1 million fiber optic coverage points, with the goal of reaching 4 million households by the end of the year. The company ultimately aims to cover over 5 million households and businesses within its 20 state coverage area.