We have a bit of late August consolidation among service providers to look at this morning. TNCI Operating Company LLC has announced the acquisition of UPH, which operates Pac-West Telecomm and PointOne among other things. The deal will give TNCI much greater depth out on the west coast.
UPH, or UniPoint Holdings, had acquired Pac-West two years ago. Pac-West was once a significant regional player in the managed modem business in California and had a decent piece of the action in the business market. But the former market has declined with the rise of broadband and they sold the latter to TelePacific in 2005. In more recent years, Pac-West had focused on its wholesale VoIP business and hosted/cloud-based communications services, which will complement TNCI’s assets nicely.
TNCI expects the deal to close on September 9, and it intends to shift the acquired companies over to the TNCI brand. If nothing else, this deal confirms the return of TNCI, which went through bankruptcy two years ago and was subsequently bought and re-animated by Blue Casa Telephone and Garrison Investment Group.
I had a chance to speak with CEO Jeff Compton at that time back in June, and he suggested that further acquisitions would follow. This probably isn’t the only target they have in mind, and a comparison to the roll-up Birch has been pursuing springs to mind.
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Categories: CLEC · Mergers and Acquisitions
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I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about the PacWest VoIP system in terms of reliability. I hope the best for them.