TW Telecom (styled tw telecom), was a business telecommunications company headquartered in Littleton,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The company provided business voice services, transport, Internet, data services and wholesale fiber capacity. It was an early leader in the deployment of

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

for metropolitan areas, dubbed Metro Ethernet. The company was acquired by

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 ...

on November 1, 2014. Exactly three years later, CenturyLink (now

Lumen Technologies Lumen Technologies, Inc. (formerly CenturyLink) is an American telecommunications company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, that offers communications, network services, security, cloud solutions, voice, and managed services. The company is a ...

) acquired Level 3 Communications on November 1, 2017.

History

Founded in 1993 as

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

Communications, the company was a joint venture between

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 ...

and

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

, a division of Time Warner Entertainment, to deliver telephone services over a hybrid fiber and coaxial network. The company was successful in their efforts, but at the time the cost to build fiber directly to consumer's homes proved too expensive to be profitable. In the mid-1990s the company evolved into a "carriers carrier" selling "

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 ...

" capacity to other telecom and Internet providers to supplement their networks. The company played a role in growth of the Internet as it built and assembled a national fiber network. Management realized that to continue to grow it needed to offer communication solutions alongside its wholesale network offerings. In July 1998, Time Warner Communications became a separate entity and was reorganized into Time Warner Telecom LLC. In May 1999, the company made an initial public offering. In 1997, the company began delivering communications services to medium and large business customers, carriers and governmental entities. In March 2003, the company introduced

Metro Ethernet A metropolitan-area Ethernet, Ethernet MAN, or metro Ethernet network is a metropolitan area network (MAN) that is based on Ethernet standards. It is commonly used to connect subscribers to a larger service network or the Internet. Businesses c ...

services, an expansion of the Ethernet model of building-wide communications networks. The metro capability basically expanded the use of Ethernet across a city or region allowing for seamless connectivity of locations that were on the network of connected Ethernet rings. This capability enabled the company to offer advanced Internet, data and voice services. In July 2006, Time Warner Telecom acquired Xspedius Communications for $531.5 million, adding additional metropolitan markets. TW Telecom had operations in 75 markets across the U.S..

Name Change

On July 1, 2008, the company was renamed TW Telecom. The company had used the name Time Warner Telecom under an agreement with Time Warner Inc., its former parent company. The name was changed when Time Warner Inc. declined to renew the agreement allowing the use of its name. The company had considered several names, but elected to use the initials "tw" to help maintain its brand legacy in the marketplace.

Acquisition

On June 16, 2014, the company agreed to be acquired by Level 3 Communications Inc. for $5.7 billion in cash and stock.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.lumen.com/ Telecommunications companies of the United States Content delivery networks Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq 2014 mergers and acquisitions Level 3 Communications Lumen Technologies Former Time Warner subsidiaries