FirstLight Fiber to Buy KINBER’s PennREN

The next target of FirstLight Fiber’s steady drumbeat of regional fiber and infrastructure acquisitions has landed. Today the northeastern operator announced a definitive agreement to acquire the network assets of the Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research, or KINBER.

KINBER operates an R&E fiber network spanning the state of Pennsylvania, which FirstLight recently began building its own fiber network into. The organization was founded in February 2010, by 2013 had built out the initial PennRen network, and currently offers access in 47 counties at 130 locations statewide. Its network assets span 1800+ route miles, connecting up universities and various community anchor institutions in all the key markets of the state: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Erie, Scranton, State Collete, and more.

The deal will further FirstLight’s ambitions to grow its network southward out of its home turf in New England and upstate New York. It adds not just the fiber footprint, but the relationships both on the education and municipal side but also with regional last mile providers that KINBER has worked with to reach into rural parts of the state. KINBER itself will continue to use the assets to serve the R&E community.

Financial details were not disclosed. but the deal is expected to close sometime in Q4.

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Categories: Fiber Networks · Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber