Northeast ISP Archtop Fiber announced on Tuesday it has completed its acquisition of GTel, which will allow Archtop to expand its network in more than five townships across New York’s Columbia County.
GTel currently has more than 2,500 customers on a 300-mile fiber network. Archtop’s release indicated GTel won three grants from the New NY Broadband Program to expand to over 5,000 individual locations, “almost tripling” its legacy footprint.
Archtop first announced the GTel acquisition in November 2022, a company rep told Fierce, adding GTel "falls right in the middle of our first-phase build area in the Hudson Valley and already has deployed a 100%-fiber network."
“We’re thrilled to have completed this process and officially bring GTel into the Archtop Fiber family,” said Archtop Chairman and CEO Jeff DeMond in a statement. “We can now begin to fully integrate our operations and move forward together with the GTel team.”
GTel’s website states Archtop’s acquisition will bring “new tech-focused jobs and business opportunities” to the region and GTel will have more access to capital for network expansion.
The Archtop rep said it will convert GTel's PON network to a "multi-gig product set" and has already started planning and constructing "a ring of expansion directly around GTel, furthering our core mission of greenfield expansion to dense areas throughout the region."
Archtop currently has up to $350 million in private capital through a partnership with private equity firm Post Road Group, DeMond told Fierce in May, adding the company expects to increase that number “substantially” in light of the recent influx of public broadband funding.
In addition to closing the GTel buy, Archtop this year unveiled it will acquire Hancock Telephone Company and Warwick Valley Telephone Co., both of which are based in New York state. Those deals are pending regulatory approvals.
"We have been selective in our acquisitions to ensure tight ideological alignment where these companies will continue operating as pillars of their communities, and we’ll support them in delivering even higher quality product experiences along the way — it’s truly a win-win," said the Archtop rep.
Archtop is targeting 500,000 XGS-PON passings in New York’s Hudson Valley region over the next several years. The ISP currently serves markets in New York and Pennsylvania but has also expressed interest in expanding to Massachusetts.
Empire Access is another fiber provider making moves in the Northeast. This summer alone, it announced expansions in six markets, including Elmira, Geneva and South Bristol, New York as well as Erie, Pennsylvania.