In 1986, The Broadband Group’s founder, Tom Reiman, was part of a landmark achievement: bringing to life an industry-first successful commercial Fiber to the Home (FTTH) investment in Heathrow, Florida. Tom, together with the Heathrow development team, recognized that the synergy of technology and strategic community planning could become a powerful economic accelerator. In partnership with Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph and its network partner Northern Telecom, it was the first successful commercial rollout of a 100% fiber investment. 

The Broadband Group created the Technology Master Plan™ for “Celebration,” a master-planned community located in Orlando, Florida that was originally developed by The Walt Disney Company. Marketed as a “community of the future,” it positioned connectivity as a cornerstone of the community.

Led by The Broadband Group, Brambleton—located in Loudon County, Va., was the first community in the nation to receive Verizon’s FiOS fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service as part of a large-scale deployment. It became a case study for Verizon’s future FiOS rollouts, and helped shape best practices for fiber-ready community planning, including conduit installation, home wiring standards, and right-of-way coordination.

Under the leadership of The Broadband Group, the RidgeGate Master Planned Community in Lone Tree, Colorado was the site of Qwest Communications’ first fiber-to-the-home deployment prior to its merger with CenturyLink (now Lumen Technologies). This project marked Qwest’s first step into delivering advanced, all-fiber connectivity in a residential setting, laying the groundwork for future digital infrastructure investments throughout Colorado and beyond.

The Broadband Group played a key role in partnership with Metro Development Group in Tampa, Florida to support its "Connected City" initiative, a visionary effort to create master-planned communities with gigabit-speed internet as a core amenity. The first such project was Epperson, located in Wesley Chapel, FL, which gained national attention as both the site of the first Crystal Lagoon in the U.S. and for its gigabit community status.

The Broadband Group, together with Huntsville Utilities, pioneered a utility-owned fiber network that leased dark fiber to private ISPs. Designed to serve the operational and smart grid priorities of the utility, the anchor tenant on the 1,000-fiber network was notably Google Fiber. This was a major departure from traditional broadband models and demonstrated how a municipal electric utility could catalyze fiber broadband without becoming a service provider itself. The partnership with Google Fiber gave the project national attention and validated the utility lease model as a viable strategy for cities to attract world-class providers while limiting taxpayer risk.

In 2017, The Broadband Group was engaged by City Utilities, the municipally owned electric utility in Springfield, Missouri, to become the second utility in the nation to implement the Utility Lease Model.  The Broadband Group created a comprehensive Fiber Network Expansion Plan that included market research, engineering and design assessments, financial modeling, and an evaluation of internal operational metrics. By August 2019, City Utilities announced its anchor tenant on the 1,100-mile network expansion, which passes over 105,000 homes and delivers gigabit-speed services to residences and businesses. In March 2023, City Utilities completed the full build-out of its Fiber Transport Network, with CenturyLink/Lumen (now Brightspeed) serving as the anchor tenant under the Utility Lease Model framework designed by TBG.

Marking the second city-owned electric utility to adopt the Utility Lease Model™, City Utilities named CenturyLink as the anchor tenant for its citywide fiber network. This milestone marked the first time an ILEC competed outside its incumbent territory on a full citywide build, redefining and accelerating competitive investment in the U.S. broadband industry by dismantling long-standing, arbitrary boundaries that had limited competition.

The Broadband Group was engaged by Roanoke Electric Cooperative to support the strategic planning, network engineering, and deployment of Fybe’s fiber broadband network across underserved areas of North Carolina. The Broadband Group led the development of the business structure between Fybe and MCNC, resulting in the creation of eNCore—a collaborative initiative designed to extend fiber broadband into neighboring Electric Membership Cooperatives. This effort advances both grid modernization and access to high-performance connectivity for rural residents and businesses.

Colorado Springs Utilities becomes the largest city-owned utility to implement The Broadband Group’s Utility Lease Model™, with Ting Internet as the anchor tenant. The citywide fiber network is designed to pass more than 200,000 addresses, bringing access to modern fiber infrastructure to all of Colorado Springs Utilities’ customers.

The Broadband Group partnered with Laguna Woods Village—one of the largest age-qualified communities in the United States—to assess and modernize its legacy HFC cable network. The Broadband Group conducted a comprehensive evaluation of existing infrastructure to identify strategic opportunities for broadband investment. Following this review, The Broadband Group structured and negotiated a partnership with Ting Internet to deploy a state-of-the-art fiber optic network serving all 14,000 residential units. The new infrastructure will deliver gigabit connectivity and enable residents to benefit from advanced applications in healthcare, continuing education, and social engagement—positioning Laguna Woods Village with a platform for long-term digital innovation.