A national leader in the internet service provider space is quietly expanding in Jacksonville.
It’s a company called Hotwire Communications, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, and its leaders told the Business Journal they’ve been building out infrastructure and quietly servicing clients for several years.
“Jacksonville is a great market,” Hotwire President David Ramos said. “That entire region, for us, has been a labor of love over the years that we've widely prepared for.”
Rather than selling to individual consumers, Hotwire targets a wider clientele, including entire HOAs, master-planned communities and businesses. Locally, one of its first major projects is the Azure oceanfront development on Jacksonville Beach — a nine-story, 26-unit luxury condominium complex.
Founded in 2002, Hotwire provides service to North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California and Florida. The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX), a private equity giant, made an investment in the South Florida internet provider in 2021.
Entering the Jacksonville market wasn’t a rushed decision, but a methodical one.
“Literally, I remember driving to Jacksonville myself with engineers and literally pinpointing everywhere where we were going to put our handholds and our network connectivity,” Ramos said.
That’s what has allowed Hotwire to expand beyond residential and grow into the commercial space, he said.
Roughly 56% of U.S. households do not have access to fiber-optic internet, according to a report commissioned by the Fiber Broadband Association. This comes as there is a demand from both business consumers and household internet users for faster connection speeds.
Hotwire owns and operates its services over a 100% fiber optic network.
“That's fiber directly from our backbone and from our data centers to each business that we service,” he said. “You’re not having to leverage copper that's been in the ground forever and hasn't been upgraded.”
It speaks to that “luxury” experience, according to Ramos, serving as the foundation to everything from gadgets to human-to-human 24/7 technical service.
The company’s North Florida focus comes at a time when it's growing elsewhere in the state.
Hotwire announced this month it will invest $50 million to build out fiber-optic infrastructure in the Orlando region and add 60 jobs.