EATEL, a regional independent telco based in Gonzales, La., is gaining an instant presence in the cloud and data center services business through its acquisition of Venyu Solutions.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
With a focus on serving the Louisiana area, Venyu is an established provider of data center, managed hosting, cloud, virtualization, and data protection solutions.
John Scanlan, president and vice chairman of EATEL, said in a release that "Venyu's success in the Gulf South coupled with our expanding fiber network and corporate footprint will provide both entities with new growth opportunities."
One of the potential benefits for Venyu is that it will be able to extend its cloud and data center services over EATEL's growing fiber-based network that it uses to provide a host of high speed data services such as Ethernet to business customers. In addition to providing fiber to the home (FTTH) services to its residential customers, EATEL said it is expanding its fiber network into Baton Rouge.
Similar to the way that other telcos such as CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) and TDS (NYSE: TDS) have purchased cloud and data center-centric providers such as Savvis and One Neck, Venyu will be run as a subsidiary of EATEL. Venyu will maintain its staff, leadership team, headquarters, and data center locations.
EATEL's purchase of Venyu represents a growing trend in the independent telco space where once voice-centric telcos are branching out into providing data center and cloud-based services as a way to diversify their revenue streams as legacy service revenues continue to decline.
Other telcos that have hatched similar plans to enter this market via acquisitions include Warwick Valley Telephone and Hargray, which purchased Alteva and iTech.
For more:
- see the release
Related articles:
EATEL makes entry into wireless business via LightSquared resale relationship
Hargray enters managed services market via iTech acquisition
Warwick Valley Telephone bolsters cloud, CLEC vision with $17M Alteva acquisition