Today we witnessed a rare event in telecom: a fission of one into two – the opposite of M&A activity. nTelos (NASDAQ:NTLS, news, filings) has completed the process of splitting off its wireline division, leaving two publicly traded companies. That means that Lumos Networks (NASDAQ:LMOS, news, filings) is now the newest fiber operator on the block. Their Mid-Atlantic regional fiber footprint is built around a West Virginian core, and looks like this:
Lumos has revenues in the $200M range, three quarters of which is on the CLEC/Fiber side and one quarter of which is an RLEC. I will be curious to see what the numbers look like as an independent entity. This sort of combination is cropping up more and more of late. Of course, HickoryTech up in Minnesota has long been like this, but Windstream is in the process of taking a hybrid RLEC/CLEC national.
I’m still trying to figure out just how best to compare companies like this to the tw telecoms, AboveNets, Level 3s, and Cogents of the sector. But that’s nobody’s fault but my own. In the meantime, welcome to the party Lumos Networks!
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Categories: CLEC · Mergers and Acquisitions
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The WV portion is old Fibernet (wvfibernet.net). The Virginia portion looks like old Shentel routes.
Yes, and the PA fiber comes largely from Allegheny. Together they make a rather unique footprint. Sometimes I wonder though just how long it will take for Zayo or Windstream to take an M&A interest – both would seem like good fits.
Formed from CFW,R&B,Alleghney,Fiberbet. Shentel did a joint build with CFW/R&B to for Valleynet. But Shentel is still on their own, not a part of Lumos..