Northwest Fiber, LLC,

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

Ziply Fiber, is an American telecommunications company based in

Kirkland, Washington Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in the county and the twelfth largest in the state. The city's downto ...

. Ziply is a subsidiary of WaveDivision Capital, a private investment company, which is also Kirkland-based. The company started operations on May 1, 2020 when it completed its acquisition of Frontier Communications‘ Northwest operations and assets for $1.4 billion; Frontier sold its Northwest operations after filing for bankruptcy protection in April 2020. Ziply Fiber's footprint covers the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

region, specifically the states of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

and

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

. Its key offerings include Fiber internet and phone for residential customers, Business Fiber Internet, and Ziply Voice services for small businesses; and a variety of internet, networking and voice solutions for enterprise customers. The company will also continue to support DSL and grandfathered TV customers. Ziply has stated that it plans on investing $500 million to improve its network and service throughout its footprint. This includes bringing fiber to nearly 85% of its network, which mainly encompasses rural communities. Currently approximately 30% have access to fiber as of June 2020 Ziply Fiber serves more than 500,000 customers across the four states and has a workforce of approximately 1,000 employees. It has major offices in Everett, Washington; Beaverton, Oregon, and Hayden, Idaho.

History

General Telephone Company of the Northwest, Inc. was founded in 1964 and later became GTE Northwest, Incorporated. GTE Northwest originally served

. In 1993, GTE acquired

Continental Telephone ConTel Corporation (Continental Telephone) was the third largest independent phone company in the United States prior to the 1996 telecom deregulation. It was acquired by GTE in 1991. History In 1980, Contel purchased Network Analysis Corp, the ...

(ConTel); as a result, ConTel operations in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho were merged into GTE Northwest. In 1994, GTE sold ConTel of Idaho to Citizens Communications (which later became

Frontier Communications Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. (known as Citizens Utilities Company until May 2000 and Citizens Communications Company until July 31, 2008) is an American telecommunications company. The company previously served primarily rural areas and s ...

). In 1995, GTE sold operations in

to Citizens Communications, and absorbed ConTel of Oregon into GTE's existing Oregon operations. In 2000,

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

acquired GTE, forming

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

. As a result, GTE Northwest was renamed Verizon Northwest, Inc. It continued to provide local telephone service to former GTE regions and some ConTel regions in

, and

. Verizon Northwest, along with several other Verizon wireline operating companies, were acquired by

on July 1, 2010. The company's name was changed to Frontier Communications Northwest, Inc. In May 2019, WaveDivision Capital announced that it would buy Frontier Communications Northwest operations for nearly $1.4 billion as part of a new service. WaveDivision Capital (“WDC”) was founded in 2003 by broadband entrepreneur Steven Weed. It is a private investment firm focused on the broadband industry, and its stated goal is “to bring better internet connections to more homes and businesses throughout North America”. Weed was the CEO of Wave Broadband until 2018, when the company was sold and he departed. Despite having similar names and key players WaveDivision Capital and Wave Broadband are not related. WaveDivision Capital formed Northwest Fiber to acquire the Frontier Communications Northwest operations, which was approved by federal and state regulators on February 19, 2020, with the new service receiving the name of "Ziply Fiber". Frontier Communications Northwest division ceased operations on April 30, 2020, and was replaced the following day by Ziply Fiber. As of 2020, the company has almost 1000 employees and serves over 500,000 customers.

References

Sources

Verizon Northwest, Inc.

External links

Home , WaveDivision Capital
{{Kirkland, Washington Communications in Washington (state) Companies based in Kirkland, Washington Frontier Communications American companies established in 2020