Lumen Technologies, Inc. (formerly CenturyLink) is an American

telecommunications company A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...

headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, that offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice, and managed services. The company is a member of the

S&P 500 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of ...

index and the Fortune 500. Its communications services include local and long-distance voice, broadband, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), private line (including special access), Ethernet, hosting (including cloud hosting and managed hosting), data integration, video, network, public access, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), information technology, and other ancillary services. Lumen also serves global enterprise customers across North America, Latin America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), and Asia Pacific.

History

The earliest predecessor of Lumen was the Oak Ridge Telephone Company in

Oak Ridge, Louisiana Oak Ridge is a village in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 142 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Bastrop Micropolitan Statistical Area. Demographics As of the census of 2000, there were 142 people, 63 househo ...

, which was owned by F. E. Hogan, Sr. In 1930, Hogan sold the company, with 75 paid subscribers, to William Clarke and Marie Williams, for $500. They moved the switchboard to the Williams family front parlor. In 1946, the Williams' son, Clarke McRae Williams, received ownership of the family's telephone company as a wedding gift.CenturyTel Company Timeline
CenturyTel.com In 1947, Clarke Williams learned the telephone company in Marion, Louisiana was for sale. With a loan from business associate Joe Sydney Carter, Clarke purchased the Marion Telephone Company and eventually made it his base of operation as he grew his company through more acquisitions. Lumen still maintains offices in the former headquarters building. The company remained as a family-operated business until it became incorporated in 1968.

1967–1999

By 1967, Oak Ridge Telephone Company served three states with 10,000 access lines. That year, the company was incorporated as Central Telephone and Electronics. Clarke M. Williams served as president and chairman of the board. Between 1972 and 1975, Clarke gradually moved his headquarters from Marion to Monroe, Louisiana, to access the larger employee base and to be near the airport. In 1971, the company was renamed Century Telephone Enterprises, Inc. In 1972, Century Telephone acquired the La Crosse Telephone Corporation, of Wisconsin. On October 24, 1978, Century Telephone moved to the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...

for the first time and began to trade under the ticker symbol CTL. Century Telephone performed well during the long bear market of the 1970s, as its stock rose over fourfold. The company provided telephone service in parts of 14 states by that time.Standard & Poor's Stock Guide, various issues In 1981, Century Telephone acquired War Telephone in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...

. In 1982, Century Telephone's earnings peaked at $14 million, then declined in 1983 following the

early 1980s recession The early 1980s recession was a severe economic recession that affected much of the world between approximately the start of 1980 and 1983. It is widely considered to have been the most severe recession since World War II. A key event leading to ...

, and finally began to recover in 1984. However, the 1983 decline led to a loss of half the value of the company's stock in 1984. In 1985, both earnings and the stock price had recovered to new record highs. But by then, the company had accumulated $206 million in long-term debt. Century Telephone sold the operations of War Telephone and two other companies to Colonial Telephone for $4.66 million. In 1987, the stock price nearly doubled from its low that year, and from its old 1982 record high, before falling back by a third in the

1987 stock market crash Black Monday is the name commonly given to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as ''Black Tuesday'' because of the time z ...

. Earnings had steadily grown each year from their 1983 low, and by 1987 reached nearly US$20 million. In 1989, Century Telephone Enterprises acquired Universal Telephone, Inc. for US$90 million in cash. During the late 1980s the company began a long trend in which it performed extremely well. The stock split three-for-two twice in this period, as earnings steadily grew, through the

1990-1991 recession The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incu ...

, and by year-end 1991, they reached nearly US$40 million, double from what they had been in 1987. In 1992, Century Telephone acquired Central Telephone Company of Ohio, a

Centel Centel Corporation was an American telecommunications company, with primary interests in providing basic telephone service, cellular phone service and cable television service. Early history In 1900, Max McGraw took his savings from his newspa ...

subsidiary, for $135 million. The acquisition served more than 65,000 access lines, and added 20% to Century's access line total. Also that year Glen F. Post III became

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

and, named Vice Chairman of the Board of Century Telephone. In 1993, Century Telephone revenues were over $425 million, up from about $350 million in 1992. 1993 earnings were nearly $80 million, up from about $70 million in 1992, excluding a nearly $16 million charge in 1992 due to the cumulative effect from an accounting change that year. Also in 1993 the company split its stock three-for-two yet again. However, by that time, the company had accumulated nearly $520 million in long-term debt. By 1995, Century Telephone Enterprises had been added to the S&P MidCap 400 index. Earnings had continued their steady growth trend through the 1994 economic

soft landing Soft landing may refer to: *Soft landing (aeronautics) A soft landing is any type of aircraft, rocket or spacecraft landing that does not result in significant damage to or destruction of the vehicle or its payload, as opposed to a hard la ...

, and by 1995 they reached over US$115 million. But the long-term debt continued to grow as well, reaching US$623 million that year. In 1997, Century Telephone acquired Delta Security Alarm Co., Inc. of Monroe, Louisiana, and its largest acquisition up until that time,

Pacific Telecom Pacific Telecom, Inc., originally Telephone Utilities, Inc. and now CenturyTel of the Northwest, Inc., was an independent telephone company that owned over 600,000 telephone lines in 12 states prior to its acquisition by CenturyTel. History PTI ...

, doubling its size with 660,000 additional telephone access lines in 12 states. Pacific Telecom, Inc., would continue existence and was renamed CenturyTel of the Northwest, Inc. In 1998, Century Telephone split its stock three-for-two once again. The company acquired another Monroe, Louisiana security company, Century Protection Systems, and also acquired 89,000 access lines and 19 exchanges in 21 northern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

communities from

Ameritech AT&T Teleholdings, Inc., formerly known as Ameritech Corporation (and before that American Information Technologies Corporation), is an American telecommunications company that arose out of the 1984 AT&T divestiture. Ameritech was one of the sev ...

. The affected customers had formerly been served by

Wisconsin Bell Wisconsin Bell, Inc. (known as Wisconsin Telephone Co. before 1984) is the name of the Bell Operating Company serving Wisconsin. It is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, originally known as Ameritech. Their headquarters is at 722 North Br ...

. Ameritech's directory publishing operations serving those customers were also acquired. In 1999, the company was renamed as CenturyTel, Inc. It split its stock three-for-two once more, and was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index that year.

2000s

In 2000, CenturyTel acquired 230,500

GTE GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...

lines in Arkansas, and also bought 127,000 GTE lines in Missouri in partnership with Spectra Communications. In Wisconsin, it acquired 133,000 additional lines, and 70,500 access lines for US$195 million from

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 ...

. That year CenturyTel also bought 62,650 lines for US$170 million in partnership with Telephone USA of Wisconsin, LLC. In 2001, CenturyTel acquired CSW Net, Inc. of Russellville, Arkansas, and fended off a hostile take-over attempt by

ALLTEL Alltel Wireless was a wireless service provider, primarily based in the United States. Before acquisitions by Verizon Wireless and AT&T, it served 34 states and had approximately 13 million subscribers. As a regulatory condition of the acquisition ...

, Inc. In 2002, longtime chairman Clarke M. Williams died. He was succeeded by then vice chairman Glen F. Post III. The company sold its wireless business to ALLTEL in order to concentrate on its rural landline business. Also that year CenturyTel acquired 300,000 Verizon access lines in Alabama, and 354,000 Verizon access lines in Missouri, bringing its total operations to 22 states with 2.5 million access lines. In 2003, CenturyTel acquired half ownership of SkyComm International, Inc. in Houston, Texas, in March, to form a satellite teleport for its global Network Access Point (NAP) system. In June, CenturyTel also acquired the fiber network of Digital Teleport, Inc., a 5,700-mile (9,200 km) route running from Illinois to Texas, and adjoining states. CenturyTel renamed the network company LightCore. Closing out the year, in December CenturyTel acquired the Midwest Fiber Optic Network (MFON) from

Level 3 Communications Level 3 Communications was an American multinational telecommunications and Internet service provider company headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. It ultimately became a part of CenturyLink (now Lumen Technologies), where Level 3 President ...

, Inc. in December, a stand-alone system in the same core central states as LightCore. In August 2004, it partnered with

EchoStar Communications EchoStar Corporation is an American company, a worldwide provider of satellite communication and Internet services through its Hughes Network Systems and EchoStar Satellite Services business segments. EchoStar is based out of unincorporated Arapa ...

Corporation for DISH Network multi-channel

digital TV Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

. In September, CenturyTel began a relationship with

Cingular Wireless AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the t ...

. In 2005, CenturyTel began a wireless voice and data service, and bought a number of fiber networks in the central United States, from KMC Telecom Holdings, Inc. In 2006, CenturyTel sold its Arizona assets to Hopi Telecommunications, Inc., bringing total operations to 23 states. In May 2007, CenturyTel acquired Madison River Communications, based out of Mebane, NC and parent company to four LECs (AL, GA, IL, and NC) as well as CLEC operations in IL, LA, and NC. The LECs included Mebtel Communications, a telephone company serving

Alamance County, North Carolina Alamance County (), from the North Carolina Collection's website at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved September 18, 2012. is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county seat ...

and Orange County, North Carolina and

Caswell County, North Carolina Caswell County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is located in the Piedmont Triad region of the state. At the 2020 census, the population was 22,736. Its county seat is Yanceyville. Partially bordering the state of Virginia, ...

near the

Virginia International Raceway Virginia International Raceway (commonly known as "VIR") is a race track located in Alton, Virginia, near Danville. It is less than a half-mile from the North Carolina/Virginia border just outside Milton, North Carolina, on the banks of the Da ...

; GulfTel Communications, based out of Foley, AL and serving Baldwin and surrounding counties; Coastal Communications, based out of Hinesville, GA; and Gallatin River Communications, serving the Dixon, Galesburg, and Pekin areas of IL.

2008 merger with Embarq and name change to CenturyLink

On October 27, 2008,

Embarq Embarq Corporation (stylized as EMBARQ) was the largest independent local exchange carrier in the United States (below the Baby Bells), serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long-distance, high-speed data and wireless services to ...

announced that it would be acquired by CenturyTel, Inc. in an all-stock transaction valued at about $6 billion. CenturyTel's CEO Glen Post would remain CEO of the merged company following the acquisition, and remained CEO until 2018. Embarq was the former landline business of Sprint and served cities in 18 states, including Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio. The deal made CenturyTel the third-largest landline phone provider in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

behind Verizon (through both Verizon Pennsylvania and Verizon North) and Comcast. On June 2, 2009, a press release announced that the combined CenturyTel/Embarq entity would be called CenturyLink. Denver-based Monigle Associates was retained to formulate the new brand strategy. The acquisition was completed on July 1, 2009. On October 19, 2009, CenturyTel and Embarq brandings were retired, and all business was officially conducted under the CenturyLink banner, continuing to trade on the NYSE under the CenturyTel stock ticker CTL. The new corporate name, CenturyLink, Inc., did not become official until May 2010.

2010 merger with Qwest

On April 22, 2010, CenturyLink (at this point still legally known as CenturyTel, Inc.) announced it would acquire

Qwest Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western and midwestern U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dako ...

in a stock-for-stock transaction. Under the agreement, CenturyLink would swap 0.1664 of its shares for each share of Qwest; as a result, CenturyLink shareholders prior to the merger wound up with 50.5% share of ownership in the combined company, while former Qwest shareholders gained the remaining 49.5%. The valuation of CenturyLink's purchase was $12 billion. The merger was completed on April 1, 2011. The addition of Qwest allowed CenturyLink to become the third largest telecommunications company in the United States, and the largest

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

phone provider in the state of Colorado. The new company has 17 million access lines, 5 million broadband customers, and 1.4 million video subscribers across 37 states. The merger also made CenturyLink owner of one of the Former Regional Bell Operating Companies: the successor to

US West US West, Inc. (stylized as US WEST) was one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs, also referred to as "Baby Bells"), created in 1983 under the Modification of Final Judgement (''United States v. Western Electric Co., Inc.'' 552 ...

, which had been purchased by Qwest in 2000.

Further acquisitions (2011–2019)

On July 15, 2011, CenturyLink acquired

Savvis Savvis is a subsidiary company of Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink) that sells managed hosting and colocation services headquartered in Town and Country, Missouri. The company owns more than 50 data centers spread across North Americ ...

, Inc., a global provider of

cloud infrastructure Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

and hosted IT services for $2 billion, which represented all outstanding shares of Savvis common stock at $40 per share. This acquisition allowed CenturyLink to provide expanded managed hosting and cloud services. On December 4, 2012, CenturyLink launched an integrated suite of cloud services called Savvisdirect. Savvisdirect was an expansion of CenturyLink's portfolio of

cloud services and includes cloud application hosting, cloud servers, cloud storage, and private cloud for small businesses, IT administrators, and developers. CenturyLink later shuttered the savvisdirect subsidiary, consolidating their cloud service offerings internally. On October 16, 2012, Savvis acquired ITO Business Division of

Ciber Ciber Global, now a part of HTC Global Services, is a global information technology consulting In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consult ...

thereby adding managed services to the portfolio. On June 14, 2013, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of AppFog, a

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

-based

Platform as a Service Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computing ...

used by over 100,000 developers to automate the deployment of software on public clouds such as Amazon Web Services and OpenStack. On November 19, 2013, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of Tier 3, a

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

-based

infrastructure as a service The first major provider of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) was Amazon in 2008. IaaS is a cloud computing service model by means of which computing resources are supplied by a cloud services provider. The IaaS vendor provides the storage, net ...

(IaaS), platform, and advanced cloud management company based on

Cloud Foundry Cloud Foundry is an open source, multi-cloud application platform as a service (PaaS) governed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation, a 501(c)(6) organization. The software was originally developed by VMware, transferred to Pivotal Software (a joint ...

. On December 8, 2014, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of DataGardens, Inc., a Disaster Recovery as-a-Service (DRaaS) provider based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. On December 11, 2014, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of Cognilytics, a predictive analytics and big data service provider. On March 30, 2016, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of netAura, a security services company that focuses on cybersecurity, security information and event management (SIEM), analytics, and vulnerability management. On January 9, 2017, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of Edison, New Jersey-based SEAL Consulting, a leading SAP services provider. This expanded CenturyLink's existing integrated SAP capabilities of hosting and managed services to include integration and software implementation. On October 31, 2016, CenturyLink announced its intent to acquire

in a deal valued at around $25 billion. After securing the necessary regulatory approvals, CenturyLink closed the transaction on November 1, 2017. This acquisition can now be viewed as a takeover from the inside. Level3 shareholders would only approve the deal if CenturyLink retired their CFO and eventually CEO. Eventually all former CenturyLink executives would be replaced by former Level3 managers leaving only HR and legal executives in place. On September 10, 2019, CenturyLink announced the acquisition of Streamroot, a provider of disruptive technology to improve video and static content delivery within bandwidth constrained areas.

2020 name change to Lumen

On September 14, 2020, CenturyLink, Inc announced that it had changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. Effective with the opening of the trading day on Sept. 18, 2020, the company stock ticker changed from CTL to LUMN. The CenturyLink brand will continue to be the customer-facing brand for traditional copper-based services. Fiber-based products and services will use the brand ''Quantum Fiber''.

2021 ILEC asset sale

On August 3, 2021, Lumen announced it would sell its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) operations in 20 states to Apollo Global Management for $7.5 billion. The assets being sold are located in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Lumen will retain operations in 16 states, including Florida, Nevada, and the states formerly served by

: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The sale closed in October 2022; the sold ILEC operations were rebranded as Brightspeed.

Products and services

Lumen's products and services focus on three segments: enterprise business, small business, and residential.

Lumen enterprise business

Lumen Enterprise Business provides products and services around network, cloud, security, voice, and managed services to enterprise customers. Lumen’s network services include SD-WAN, MPLS/IPVPN, hybrid WAN, Ethernet, Internet access, wavelength services,

dark fiber A dark fibre or unlit fibre is an unused optical fibre, available for use in fibre-optic communication. Dark fibre may be leased from a network service provider. Dark fibre originally referred to the potential network capacity of telecommunic ...

, and private lines. Lumen Cloud provides big data as a service, Internet of Things (IoT), multi-cloud management, private cloud, public cloud, bare metal, SaaS applications, and cloud connect. Lumen Security monitors more than a billion security events daily. Services include: cloud, infrastructure, DDoS, web application, email, and web security. The company also provides analytics and threat management, risk and compliance support, and threat research labs. CenturyLink offers voice products ranging from traditional landlines to unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) services and was recognized in 2018 by Frost & Sullivan for “growth excellence in VoIP access and SIP trunking”. Lumen’s managed services include advanced professional services, IT consulting, and strategic partnerships.

Lumen content delivery network

Lumen is a global content delivery network (CDN) with 170 Tbps of global edge capacity in over 90 cities worldwide. Its CDN offering is supported by a peer-to-peer CDN overlay to expand capacity, and a load balancer to distribute traffic for multi-CDN architectures. The points of presence are located over all continents, as shown on thi
map
Lumen has developed the edge capabilities of its global CDN through its partnership wit
Section.io
They now offer a flexible edge framework on which you can bring applications to boost performance, optimize websites and secure web assets (using external apps such as ThreatX, Perimeter X, etc.). They received a Frost & Sullivan Award for their web security offering in 2021.

CenturyLink small business

CenturyLink Small Business provides products and services around Internet, Phone, TV, and Cloud Applications. Like CenturyLink Residential, CenturyLink Small Business offers DirecTV, but the residential and business packages are designed for the different settings.

CenturyLink residential

CenturyLink Residential provides Internet (either DSL or Gigabit Fiber, depending on the package), voice, and TV, via partnership with

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

. The company also offers bundling with

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...

Availability by state

CenturyLink residential services are available in the following states: *Arizona *Colorado *Florida *Idaho *Iowa *Kentucky *Minnesota *Montana *Nebraska *Nevada *New Mexico *North Dakota *Oregon *South Dakota *Utah *Washington *Wyoming CenturyLink business services are available in the following states: *Arizona *Colorado *Florida *Idaho *Iowa *Kentucky *Minnesota *Montana *Nebraska *Nevada *New Mexico *North Dakota *Oregon *South Dakota *Utah *Washington *Wyoming

Fiber

''Quantum Fiber'' is a

fiber to the premises Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic ...

service in the United States, providing broadband Internet to a small and very slowly growing number of locations. The service was first introduced to Omaha,

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

, and next rolled out to

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

, with plans for expansion to several other markets. Unlike the company's existing high speed Internet deployments, which utilize fiber-to the node/neighborhood to increase the speed of ADSL2+ speeds up to 20/2 Mbit/s, Vectored VDSL2+ speeds up to 140/10Mbit/s, in these markets CenturyLink now installs their fiber optic cable all the way to the home or business with speeds up to 1,000 Mbit/s download and 1,000 Mbit/s upload using Calix Optical Network Terminals. On February 2, 2014, CenturyLink announced the availability of Gigabit fiber service to multi-tenant businesses in Salt Lake City and surrounding communities. On August 5, 2014, CenturyLink announced the expansion of its gigabit fiber service to 16 additional markets. On September 15, 2015, CenturyLink announced the expansion of its gigabit fiber service to residential and business customers in six additional states, increasing the company's service coverage to select areas of 17 states. Lumen maintains and operates dark fiber within the United States for the Department of Defense, contracting announcements indicate. This is a continuation of CenturyLink's work. Gigabit Fiber markets

Data centers

On May 2, 2017, CenturyLink, Inc. completed the previously announced sale of its data centers and colocation business to funds advised by BC Partners, in a consortium including Medina Capital Advisors and Longview Asset Management. The deal was worth approximately $1.86 billion, with CenturyLink retaining an approximately 10% equity stake in the consortium's newly formed global secure infrastructure company, Cyxtera Technologies.

Organizational structure

As of 2018, CenturyLink is the second largest U.S. communications provider to global enterprise customers, second to Comcast. CenturyLink has customers in more than 60 countries and has been named one of America's best customer service companies (alongside Frontier and

Spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

Naming rights and sponsorships

Venue naming rights

Current

Lumen Field Lumen Field is a multi-purpose stadium in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located in the city's SoDo neighborhood, it is the home field for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL, t ...

–

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

(formerly ''Seahawks Stadium'', ''Qwest Field'', and ''CenturyLink Field'')

Former

* CenturyLink Arena Boise –

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...

(now ''Idaho Central Arena'', formerly ''Bank of America Centre'' and ''Qwest Arena'') * CenturyLink Center – Bossier City, Louisiana (now ''Brookshire Grocery Arena'', formerly ''Bossier City Arena'' and ''CenturyTel Center'') * CenturyLink Center Omaha –

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

(now ''CHI Health Center Omaha'', formerly ''Qwest Center Omaha'')

Sponsorships

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...

* Orlando Magic *

Idaho Steelheads The Idaho Steelheads are an American professional minor league ice hockey team based in Boise, Idaho, and a member of the ECHL. The Steelheads play in the Mountain Division of the ECHL's Western Conference since the 2016–17 season. In 1996, th ...

* Seattle Seahawks * Texas Rangers *

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The cl ...

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...

Portland Trail Blazers The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Con ...

ULM Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...

* LA Tech

Outages and other technical issues

The

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

ordered CenturyLink to pay a record $16 million for failing to alert authorities of a preventable programming error that left nearly 11 million people in seven states without access to emergency services for six hours in 2014. In December 2018, CenturyLink faced criticism for requiring residential customers in Utah to, via

DNS hijacking DNS hijacking, DNS poisoning, or DNS redirection is the practice of subverting the resolution of Domain Name System (DNS) queries. This can be achieved by malware that overrides a computer's TCP/IP configuration to point at a rogue DNS server unde ...

, view and acknowledge a notice advertising its security and

parental control ''Parental Control'' is a reality television show about people looking for love produced by MTV. The two directors, Brendon Carter and Bruce Klassen, have also created other MTV shows. In Asia, this show was aired on Channel V from 2007–2009. ...

software, before they could connect to the internet again. The provider claimed that this was required by a recently enacted state law, which requires all ISPs to inform users that they provide "the ability to block material harmful to minors". Bill sponsor and

Utah State Senate The Utah State Senate is the upper house of the Utah State Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. The Utah Senate is composed of 29 elected members representing an equal number of senate districts. Each senate district is ...

member Todd Weiler stated that the law did not require that service be disrupted until the notice is acknowledged; the law only requires that this notice be delivered in a "conspicuous" manner (such as an advertisement within a bill or invoice) and does not require disruption of service. On December 27, 2018, a “nationwide outage” caused 9-1-1 service to be disrupted across the country. The

says it will investigate. In some areas the outage lasted nearly twelve hours and was the third shutdown of the year following outages in April and November 2018. ATM and point of sale credit card machines were also widely affected. On January 8, 2020, CenturyLink was required to pay $8.9 million to customers in Minnesota in a settlement regarding over-billing. In addition to the payment, CenturyLink is required to reform billing practices and submit audits to the Minnesota Attorney General's office. According to reports, CenturyLink disagreed with the charges, but settled to avoid litigation costs. On August 30, 2020, CenturyLink suffered a major technical outage due to misconfiguration in one of the company's data centers. The outage impacted tech giants such as

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in Sa ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, Xbox Live and many more. Reports indicate that all services were restored by 11:12 am ET.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Centurylink 1930 establishments in Tennessee American companies established in 1930 Cloud computing providers Cloud infrastructure Companies based in Louisiana Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Internet service providers of the United States Monroe, Louisiana Pay telephone operators of the United States Telecommunications companies established in 1930 Telecommunications companies of the United States Tier 1 networks