The incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) Windstream (WINMQ) is going to acquire Q-Comm Corporation. Q-Comm is a privately held regional fiber transport and CLEC based in Overland Park, KS for about $782 million. Norlight, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Q-Comm has a fiber network in Michigan. The addition of Norlight to the Windstream market will expand its presence as a competitive force in the SMB market. Norlight currently has about 5,500 SMB customers.
Also included in the deal was Windstream’s purchase of Kentucky Data Link (KDL), another wholly-owned subsidiary of Q-Comm. Analysts suggest that the KDL addition by Windstream will complement its ongoing effort to upgrade and expand the fiber network in its own 16-state ILEC territory. KDL provides an additional 30,000 fiber route miles to the Windstream network. KDL has about 400 employees and provides fiber services for bandwidth-intensive customers such as wireline and wireless carriers — in 22 states.
“This transaction builds on Windstream’s strategy to become a next-generation telecom provider focused on broadband and enterprise customers,” Windstream CEO Jeff Gardner said in a release.
Windstream operates in 23 states, where it provides service for 3.3 million phone lines, 1.27 million Internet customers and 420,000 digital television customers. It has 9,500 employees and annual revenue of about $4 billion.
rb-
Windstream says it will “increase success-based capital expenditure investments in the near term” with a concentration on “the wireless backhaul and enterprise businesses.” Let’s hope so because the broadband in Michigan is terrible. According to theory, at least, increased competition for telco and cableco should drive down prices and increase services.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.