Archtop closes WVT acquisition, expands to New Jersey

Archtop Fiber this week closed its acquisition of New York-based Warwick Valley Telephone, marking the provider’s third acquisition in five months as it continues expanding in the northeast U.S.

With WVT under its belt, Archtop will serve customers in New York’s Orange County, the Mid-Hudson Valley and northwestern New Jersey with an XGS-PON network. Archtop will overlash fiber onto WVT’s existing lines and rebrand the company to WVT Fiber.

New Jersey is a new expansion for Archtop, which previously just served New York and Pennsylvania, a spokesperson told Fierce.

“WVT will continue to serve [New Jersey’s] Franklin Borough, Upper Greenwood Lake and Vernon,” said the Archtop rep. “As we develop our roll-out strategy, we will announce future build plans and any new areas of expansion at a later date.”

The acquisition came via a stock purchase agreement with Momentum Telecom, WVT’s previous owner and a provider of managed cloud communications services. Archtop is now the full owner of WVT and it also plans to leverage Momentum’s cloud voice solutions in its greenfield markets.

The WVT buy follows Archtop’s acquisitions of Hancock Telephone and GTel, both based in New York state. Alongside WVT, the companies are all “long-standing community providers,” the spokesperson said.

“They align with our commitment to deliver unmatched customer service and to be the go-to local Fiber Internet service throughout Hudson Valley communities.”

Archtop is privately funded with around $350 million in private capital through its partnership with Post Road Group. The operator has said it’s targeting a total of 500,000 XGS-PON passings over the next several years and that it will get there by both building and buying networks.

The rep didn’t disclose any future Archtop markets, but said the company’s plans for 2024 “[are] currently being finalized.”