Fiber Minnesota LLC says that it has merged with two other fiber transport carriers – Broadband Visions (BBV) and SM Broadband (SMB) – to create what it says is one of the state’s largest transport networks.
The new entity will operate under the Fiber Minnesota brand. It will have a backbone of 3,900 route miles, which is 60% more than the network had before the move.
The newly constituted company will reach “nearly all corners of the state,” including rural areas that often are left behind, with redundant connectivity, a press release noted. The company also noted that the combination makes sense since principals share multiple shareholders and have significant overlap.
The members of BBV and SMB now are shareholders in Fiber Minnesota. Most of the members are operating companies/ ISPs serving rural areas of the state. Member companies also come from South and North Dakota.
BBV will continue to operate its video headend and Internet Services division. SMB has completely merged into Fiber Minnesota.
The broad ownership base is an advantage, said Glenn Zerbe, Board Chair of BBV and President of Nuvera Communications, one of the Fiber Minnesota owners, in a press release. “Consumers and institutions, especially those in rural areas, will experience a higher degree of reliability for broadband and related services. All three of these networks complement each other, and their combination removes redundancies and offers greater scale. The ability to keep more traffic on-net is imperative as the transport network industry evolves.”
Fiber Minnesota initially emerged from a deal last year in which fiber network operator Cooperative Network Services (CNS) acquired the West Central Transport Group (WCTG) fiber network and integrated the two networks.
CNS’s acquisition of WCTG occurred in July 2020.
