{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreidh2ohug4hmjxqu7oimqb5svrq3p745b4ba7hkhhte2mz2rshfshq",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:mg5ozsljpp6t5b4lvwys4t72/app.bsky.feed.post/3migwq5ktrwc2"
  },
  "coverImage": {
    "$type": "blob",
    "ref": {
      "$link": "bafkreia3py3mjxnxipczp3x2ccvdxm7gyrnielmtempfu5ylmngb5jfcz4"
    },
    "mimeType": "image/png",
    "size": 1484256
  },
  "description": "Louisiana's LFT Fiber is expanding its community-owned fiber network into underserved areas.",
  "path": "/lafayettes-lft-fiber-steadily-expands-offers-even-faster-speeds/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-01T14:48:03.000Z",
  "site": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com",
  "tags": [
    "LFT Fiber",
    "changed its name",
    "announced",
    "Learn more about the Broadband Community...",
    "Start Your Broadband Journey Here",
    "expanding into some nearby rural communities",
    "introduce a new section of its website",
    "three tiers of fiber service",
    "roughly a decade ago",
    "recently told the Acadiana Advocate",
    "Louisiana continues to maintain its preemption laws"
  ],
  "textContent": "Lafayette, Louisiana-based LFT Fiber, formerly known as LUS Fiber, says it continues to expand its fiber footprint and introduce faster symmetrical speed tiers to many Louisiana locals long trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide.\n\nLUS Fiber was launched in 2004 as a direct response to consumer outrage at substandard, expensive citywide broadband access. Last year LFT changed its name from LUS Fiber to LFT fiber.\n\nBack in February LFT Fiber announced it had finished a planned network expansion project into Eunice, Louisiana, bringing fiber access to many underserved locals for the first time.\n\nLearn more about the Broadband Community...\n\n\n                            Start Your Broadband Journey Here\n                        \n\n\"This is more than just infrastructure; it’s a long-term investment in our communities that drives economic development, improves health and wellness outcomes, and enhances student educational performance,” LFT Fiber Director **Michael Soileau** said of the expansion. “It’s about building better and stronger communities.”\n\nLFT Fiber now passes 95,000 households and businesses in its core service area of Lafayette Parish alone, and a few years ago began expanding into some nearby rural communities thanks to an historic infusion of ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) and other state and federal broadband grants.\n\nThe municipal provider recently had to introduce a new section of its website to explain to some Lafayette Parish customers why they may still be waiting for connection while other nearby communities get connected.\n\n“As a community-owned network, revenue generated from these new service areas doesn’t leave the state or go to distant shareholders,” the provider noted. “It’s reinvested. That means growth outside Lafayette helps build financial strength inside Lafayette— funding improvements, strengthening infrastructure, and accelerating future expansion Expansion isn’t a detour from our mission. It’s part of the strategy to achieve it.”\n\nIn most of its markets, LFT Fiber offers three tiers of fiber service: a symmetrical 250 megabit per second (Mbps) offering for $55 a month; a symmetrical 500 Mbps tier for $65 a month; and a symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) offering for $85 a month.\n\nLike most community-operated offerings, LUS Fiber’s service comes without hidden fees, long-term contracts, or punitive broadband usage caps.\n\nBut the popular provider has more recently extended faster symmetrical 2 Gbps and 5 Gbps tiers, previously only available to business locations, to their local residential customers. That brings it more in line with other popular municipal providers like Chattanooga’s LPB Fiber, which introduced symmetrical speeds up to 10 Gbps roughly a decade ago.\n\n“There simply wasn’t a demand for it (in the home),” Soileau recently told the Acadiana Advocate. “And I kind of called it out and said, ‘Listen, as long as there’s a demand, we’ll do it.’ I’m happy to say we’ll be launching not only 2-gig residential but 5-gig residential as well.”\n\nDespite the success of the LFT Fiber network, Louisiana continues to maintain its preemption laws that effectively prevent other municipalities from following in the footsteps of the trailblazing initiative. In fact, Louisanna has among the strongest municipal broadband prohibitions in the nation – barriers that were made stronger after Lafayette launched LUS Fiber.\n\n**_This article comes from the Community Broadband Networks Initiative of the Institute for Local Self Reliance, and was published on CommunityNets.org on March 25, 2026, and is reprinted with permission._**",
  "title": "Lafayette’s LFT Fiber Steadily Expands, Offers Even Faster Speeds",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-07T22:02:15.598Z"
}