Lumen Closes Sale of Local Incumbent Carrier Operations in 20 States to Brightspeed

Lumen Technologies announced it has closed the sale of its ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) business in 20 states to Brightspeed. Lumen believes the transaction is a key step in its strategic plans to focus investments on driving profitable growth and places the company in a leading position to meet the world's increasing IT demands for latency-sensitive applications and immersive digital experiences.

"This is an important step in realizing long-term shareholder value while focusing our portfolio on the strongest growth opportunities, including investments in markets where we can concentrate our resources to reach more customers with maximum efficiency," said Jeff Storey, Lumen president and CEO. "Brightspeed has acquired a business with a strong customer base, dedicated employees and a platform for future growth. I'm very proud of our team for their dedicated work in closing this transformational project."

Key Highlights:

• Brightspeed acquired Lumen's ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) business in 20 states, which includes a robust, scaled local fiber and copper network, voice and broadband services, as well as back-office support.
• This sale allows Lumen to sharpen its enterprise focus, support its accelerated Quantum Fiber deployment plan and drive growth on the Lumen Platform.

Lumen retains its ILEC assets in 16 states where it plans to continue to invest in bringing Quantum Fiber broadband to more communities. Lumen also retains its CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) networks, national fiber routes and associated networks in all of these states, as well as its international operations and strategic partnerships.

Source: Lumen Technologies media announcement