Fiber infrastructure provider FirstLight has agreed to acquire Nashua, New Hampshire-based 186 Communications to expand its high-capacity fiber network in the Northeast.
FirstLight says 186’s network in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, consisting of 1,900 route miles of fiber will be combined with its own 10,000 route mile network and portfolio of data, internet, cloud, and voice services.
A pending acquisition of Finger Lakes Technologies Group is also underway, and once the two transactions are completed FirstLight will operate about 14,000 route miles of high-capacity fiber-optic network that reaches almost 8,000 locations and 12 data centers in the region.
FirstLight CEO Kurt Van Wagenen calls the deal another ‘exciting development’ for the company, and says 186’s assets will be ‘very complementary’ to FirstLight’s existing network and capabilities.
186 is a member of the Joint Trench Partnership (JTP) in Boston and has a fiber in each of the A, B, and E loops. The company also built two fiber routes from points in New Hampshire to Boston and interconnected them with the JTP rings.
The acquisition with Finger Lake Technologies, announced in March, merges the company’s 2,500 route miles fiber network in New York state and Pennsylvania with FirstLight’s, offering increased fiber density in those areas.
The recent deals build on FirstLight’s previous announcements to combine operations with Oxford Communications and acquire Sovernet Communications.
Terms of the 186 deal, which is expected to close by the end of 2017, were not disclosed.