Twin Valley Telephone enters cloud service game via ISG acquisition

Twin Valley Telephone's recent move to acquire ISG illustrates that smaller independent telcos are just as motivated to expand their business service portfolio with managed and cloud services as the Tier 1 and Tier 2 telcos like Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN).  

Like fellow New York-based independent telco Warwick Valley Telephone's move to purchase Alteva earlier this year, Twin Valley is another small independent telephone company serving over 6,000 customers in the Miltonvale, Kan. area.

Although neither company revealed the terms of the deal, ISG currently offers about 2,500 business customers a mix of data center, cloud and managed services throughout a number of Midwest cities and towns in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

In addition to selling services directly to its new combined business customer base, the pair plans to launch wholesale and private label reseller channels to enable other area service providers and integrators to sell cloud services to their respective customer base.

Ben Foster, chairman and CEO of the newly combined company, believes that the deal will enhance the network reach and solution set of both service providers.  

"It's really more about the new geography and customers we'll be able to serve via ISG and our network that ISG will have access to that they didn't have access to today," Foster said in a Salina Journal article. "The new companies will be able to provide a full suite of IT services and data transport that no other company will be able to provide in our market area."

When the purchase is complete, the combined entity will have over 200 employees and $90 million in revenues.

On the management side, current CEO Ben Foster will remain as chairman and COO of Twin Valley in addition to serving as chairman and CEO of ISG. John Gunn, ISG's co-founder, will serve as president and COO of ISG, while Gary Abbott will continue to operate as ISG's CFO.

For more:
- see the release
- The Salina Journal has this article

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