AT&T said Wednesday that it plans to buy the CenturyLink fiber-optic business that provides high-speed internet services to homes in 11 states, including thousands of customers in the Portland area.
The $5.5 billion deal brings one million internet customers now served by CenturyLink's corporate parent, Louisiana-based Lumen Technologies. Lumen will retain its business internet service and the small portion of CenturyLink's landline phone business that still runs on old-fashioned copper lines.
CenturyLink is Oregon's second-largest internet service provider, after Comcast. It serves customers in Portland, Lake Oswego and across the Columbia River in Vancouver. AT&T Fiber is among the nation's biggest internet providers, with more than 8.8 million customers. CenturyLink's high-speed internet subscribers will become customers of AT&T Fiber.
CenturyLink home internet customers in Minneapolis, Seattle, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Denver will also shift to AT&T Fiber.
AT&T and Comcast operate in most of the country but some other telecom companies, descended from the "Baby Bells" that emerged from the 1984 breakup of AT&T, still serve distinct territories. CenturyLink is the latest iteration of a regional phone company formerly known as US West, and it serves customers primarily in the Northwest and Mountain West.
AT&T said "certain employees" will transfer from CenturyLink to AT&T in conjunction with Wednesday's deal but declined to say how many workers it will retain or how many people it currently employs in Oregon. It would not disclose how many internet customers CenturyLink has in Oregon.
AT&T said it plans to "significantly grow" the number of customers in CenturyLink's markets but didn't specify what actions it will take. Any significant customer growth would require winning subscribers away from Comcast.
A similar transition is playing out in Portland's suburbs. Ziply Fiber, which serves much of Washington County and east Multnomah County, is selling its own business to Bell Canada for $5 billion.
-- Mike Rogoway covers Oregon technology and the state economy. Reach him at [email protected].