TORONTO, ON / ACCESS Newswire / October 1, 2025 / Scarcity is usually a problem in business. For Akanda Corp. (NASDAQ:AKAN), it's an advantage. The company sits on one of the leanest floats on the Nasdaq, barely 728,000 shares after its reverse split. That scarcity means every contract, every tower, and every stretch of fiber deployed carries more weight than it would anywhere else. First Towers & Fiber (FTF), now fully under the Akanda umbrella, is the engine turning that scarcity into torque.

FTF isn't chasing buzzwords. It's laying down hard infrastructure-telecom towers and dark fiber-across Mexico, where reliable connectivity is still patchy and underserved. The company already controls 700 kilometers of fiber running through five cities and has roughly thirty towers ready to generate revenue. Each one is backed by long-term lease agreements designed to feed Mexico's digital expansion. Scarcity here doesn't signal weakness. It signals pressure building behind an asset base that is only starting to stretch.

That pressure just got a bigger release valve with Akanda confirming that FTF has been named a preferred contractor in the Altán Redes/Red Compartida initiative, a national program with more than $7 billion committed to telecom infrastructure. What once looked like isolated deployments now feels like the opening movement of something much larger.

Project That's Happening, Not Planning

Altán Redes' Red Compartida project is not theory. It is one of the most ambitious digital undertakings in Latin America, already years into execution. The goal is ambitious: to deliver wholesale LTE and 4G services to more than 92% of Mexico's population, with 5G on the horizon. The numbers tell the story.

More than eleven thousand towers already standing. Eighty thousand localities connected. Twenty-four million people are receiving coverage today. This is not a blueprint pinned to a wall. It is a live network growing month by month. For FTF to be placed inside that current as a preferred contractor is a shift in trajectory. Every tower built extends coverage, every kilometer of fiber strengthens a backbone designed to be open, resilient, and lasting.

That shift matters because it changes the frame around FTF. Building towers for one-off contracts is good business. Building towers inside a national program with a decades-long concession is a different scale entirely. Red Compartida's shared structure spreads the benefits and avoids placing all the weight on any single operator, thereby creating durability. For FTF, that alignment means the growth of its own network is no longer confined to scattered deals. It is tied to a project that has already proven to deliver, is already funded, and is already changing the digital map of Mexico.

Building An Asset-Enhanced Future

Of course, infrastructure never comes easy. Towers require land, permits, and steel. Fiber requires trenches, rights-of-way, and coordination across jurisdictions. Financing has to keep pace with the work. Akanda has already raised twelve million dollars in convertible funding to keep FTF's build on track, and more will follow if the company scales into Altán as expected. Capital intensity is the cost of operating in this field, but it is also what converts concrete and fiber into long-term, recurring revenue once assets are operational. FTF's initial footprint-thirty towers and 700 kilometers of dark fiber-is proof of concept. Linked now to Altán, that foundation expands from a handful of cities to the outline of a national grid.

This is where proof stops being a slogan and becomes visible in steel and cable. Each tower that rises, each strand of fiber lit, is evidence that can't be walked back. Proof is currency, and in FTF's case, the story of that currency is unfolding one build at a time. The opportunity is no longer abstract. It is measurable, tangible, and locked into programs already funded at scale.

The next phase will be about pace. How quickly FTF can transition from dozens of towers to hundreds, from five cities to a footprint that spans the national concession, will define how this story unfolds in the quarters ahead. What's certain is that Akanda's pivot has pulled it into the slipstream of one of Mexico's biggest infrastructure undertakings. The work is underway, the contracts are real, and the proof is starting to stack.

About Akanda Corp.

Akanda Corp. is an international cannabis company with operations in Europe and North America. The company is dedicated to cultivating and distributing high-quality medical cannabis and wellness products that improve lives. Akanda's mission is to provide safe, reliable, and accessible cannabis products to consumers worldwide while promoting sustainable business practices.

About First Towers & Fiber Corp.

First Towers is focused on tower development and operating its 700+km fiber optic network in the attractive wireless market of Mexico, with an intention to expand to other Latin American countries. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Akanda Corp. (NASDAQ: AKAN).

Forward-Looking Statements
This article was prepared by Hawk Point Media Group, LLC, and may contain information, views, or opinions regarding the future expectations, plans, and prospects of Akanda Corp. that constitute or may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are not historical facts and are based on assumptions, beliefs, and expectations regarding future economic and operating performance. Although Hawk Point Media Group, LLC believes such statements are made in good faith and based on information available at the time of writing, there can be no assurance that the expectations expressed will prove accurate. Akanda Corp and Hawk Point Media Group, LLC undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable law.

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SOURCE: Akanda Corp