Birch Communications Acquires Lightyear Network Solutions

By Miguel Leiva-Gomez
TMCnet Contributor

Birch Communications, a company known for providing communications and cloud services to SMBs, announced on Monday that it has closed the purchases of Lightyear Network Solutions' (News - Alert) assets, which began in May of this year. Lightyear was a publicly traded voice and wireless telecommunications provider who serviced businesses and residential customers across the North American continent.

The closing of this acquisition marks Birch's 18-th successful asset purchase since 2006.

Steve Lochmueller, Lightyear's CEO, believes that Birch's acquisition of his company will greatly benefit its customers, saying that “Birch is a solid and well respected company, with a real focus on customer service. The combination of Birch's network, award winning customer support, and financial strength will give our customers options to satisfy all of their communication needs.”

As a result of the acquisition, Birch will have Lightyear's wireline customers and network. Its wireless customers will be taken over by Tempo Communications, a company that offers prepaid and contract-based terrestrial wireless communications to residential subscribers.

Fixed line customers of Lightyear have received a letter telling them that from September 27, 2013 onwards, they're services will be switched over to Birch. The letter also reassured customers that there will be little or no impact on their current services as the switch takes place. This agreement was formed in a way in which the customers will not suffer any increase in their monthly rates because of the switchover.

Vincent M. Oddo, CEO and president of Birch, said, “This acquisition strengthens the breadth and scope of the Birch IP-Network. The addition of these assets, which are natural extensions to our current Birch products and services, greatly enhance our Hosted PBX (News - Alert), SIP trunking, and VoIP-based services and Carrier Services product offerings. In addition, the new Kentucky markets, now added to our network footprint, have expanded our growing Birch IP-Network to 11 states. Birch now provides services to customers in all 50 U.S. States, the District of Columbia, Canada, and Puerto Rico.”

Edited by Ryan Sartor