WA Utilites Commission Greenlights Ziply Fiber to Canadian Firm

Ziply Fiber, who is headquartered in Kirkland, WA, supplies fiber optic and other digital services to consumers in WA, OR, Idaho, and Montana, and has a large presence in the Tri-Cities. Now, they're turning control over to a Canadian company. (This is a view of their operations center in Kennewick at Clearwater and Arthur)

  The WA Utilities and Transportation Commission greenlights the move

The UTC announced Tuesday (August 5th) they have granted permission for Canada's largest fiber optic and digitial delivery company, Bell Canada.  Ziply has about 1.3 million consumers, Bell Canada 8 million.  Ziply plans soon to be offering service to at least 7,000 consumers in Pasco after adding networking for another 4,500 deliveries, besides its customers in the rest of the Mid Columbia.

According to the UTC:

"In December 2024, Northwest Fiber Holdco and BCE sought the commission’s approval to transfer Ziply Fiber's ownership from Northwest Fiber to BCE. Following this filing, all parties agreed to address their concerns and reached a mutual agreement to resolve all issues discussed during the process."

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The UTC says the settlement aims to provide a seamless transition from Ziply to Bell, Ziply will continue operations as normal but will turn all "control" over to Bell.

The reason for the acquisition is Bell is seeking to expand its footprint into the US, and Ziply (according to source) represented a strong opportunity to do so, including proximity between WA and Canada.

The deal is worth about $5 billion dollars, according to Broadband Breakfast online.

Using Ziply as part of its portfolio, Bell hopes by 2028 to have at least 12 million consumers, which would make it the third-largest fiber service supplier in North America. Because Ziply is going to continue its regular operations, business experts don't foresee rate increases for existing Ziply consumers, at least not in the near future.