Lumen Technologies has sold select content delivery customer contracts and other assets to Akamai Technologies. A Lumen spokesperson confirmed that the contracts and the assets that support them came from the acquisition of Level 3.
At the time of the acquisition, Lumen was known as CenturyLink.
Neither Lumen personnel or technology are included in the deal.
The value of the transaction was not revealed. The companies will cooperate in a transition agreement for 90 days. At that point, Lumen will wind down its content delivery services.
Lumen said the sale will enable the company to focus more on its core business.
A similar move was Lumen’s sale of local exchange carrier (ILEC) operations in 20 midwestern and southeastern states to Brightspeed. The deal closed a year ago. Lumen kept markets where it saw the most growth potential.
Lumen made another strategic move last November with the sale of its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) business to Colt Technology for $1.8 billion. The company said that one of the benefits of the deal was to generate capital and create “a streamlined portfolio [that] will drive more focused investments on enterprise growth and help maintain Lumen’s strong balance sheet.”
For Akamai, however, CDN is a a core business.
“As these new customers come on to Akamai Connected Cloud, they will not only have a reliable, best-in-class delivery solution for their ongoing needs, they will also have the opportunity to tap into the full portfolio of Akamai solutions to help them power and protect their businesses into the future,” Adam Karon, Akamai’s chief operating officer and general manager of the Cloud Technology Group, said in the press release.
