SpaceX 5G plan joins six US broadband buildout projects

By Amara Osei

What does SpaceX actually commit?

Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to build a terrestrial 5G mobile network across tens of thousands of sites with Qualcomm, after trying satellites and small cells. The featured report provides no deployment timetable, spectrum allocation, capital commitment, coverage footprint or subscriber target, so its description of a huge rollout measures ambition rather than commercial delivery.

The announcement supplies scale and a technology partner. It leaves the site list, launch market and construction schedule for later.

The wider roundup is more grounded. New construction, awards and service launches tracked in this edition reach more than 47,000 locations across the US. Its entries disclose project values, location counts, grants and construction windows.

Several also name the money behind the build. Surf names Macquarie Capital-led private-equity backing and TDS names Oaktree Capital Management funding, while iGo, Spectrum and Comcast use public grant programs. That split makes the financing clearer than the delivery schedules.

How much of Surf’s fiber is live?

Surf Internet held a late-October ribbon-cutting ceremony for its fiber network in Muncie and Yorktown, Indiana, after starting the $14.6 million project in May 2025. It says it has connected nearly 2,500 homes and businesses since then, against 8,700 planned locations in Muncie and 3,000 in Yorktown.

The full local plan covers 11,700 locations, while Surf expects another 10,000 locations in Delaware and Grant counties. Macquarie Capital leads Surf Internet’s private-equity funding. The ceremony was the easy part.

What changes in Oregon and Maine?

TDS will start construction in the coming weeks across its existing Bend, Oregon, broadband network, the company said. TDS said in a press release that the work forms part of a “multi-year effort to upgrade services to about 30,000 addresses across the Bend area.” The fiber build will ultimately support service of up to 8 Gbit/s symmetrical throughout the Deschutes County region.

TDS is a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems and has funding from Oaktree Capital Management. The company attached no completion date to the announcement, which leaves the multi-year label doing some of the work.

Fidium Fiber broadband is now available to more than 2,200 homes and businesses in Milbridge, Maine, a Washington County community. The figure describes service availability, not subscriber uptake, which the announcement does not provide.

The operator was formerly known as Consolidated Communications; affiliates of Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P., and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation acquired it in December 2024, and the company rebranded as Fidium in September 2025.

Where do public grants do the work?

iGo Technology has won a $2.4 million grant from the US Department of Agriculture to deploy 25 miles of fiber in Dickenson County, Virginia. The company said its network will reach “300 people,” including “14 businesses and two farms.” iGo also plans to set up a community center with public internet access in the Dickenson County town of Haysi.

Louisiana’s broadband office, ConnectLA, says Spectrum has expanded broadband access to 940 households and 72 businesses in St. Tammany Parish. Grant support comes through the state’s Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities 1.0 program, using money from the Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund via the 2021 American Rescue Plan.

Comcast broadband is now available to more than 1,400 homes and businesses in Monongalia County, West Virginia. The project remains underway and aims to connect more than 2,700 locations by the end of the year. Local reporting says Comcast received $5.98 million in 2024 toward the $17.8 million project, allocated from Monongalia County’s share of American Rescue Plan funding.

The next checkpoints are concrete: TDS construction in the coming weeks, Comcast’s year-end connection target, Surf’s path from nearly 2,500 live connections toward 11,700 local locations, and a disclosed build timetable for SpaceX’s Qualcomm plan. Until those dates arrive, the 5G scheme is the biggest promise, while the fiber projects supply the harder counts.