AT&T’s $5.75 billion purchase of Lumen Technologies home fiber-internet business will impact 1 million customers nationwide, including an undisclosed number in Colorado who buy fiber service from Quantum Fiber, a brand that originated under CenturyLink.
The deal, pending regulatory approval, was announced Wednesday, and means AT&T will step into the consumer world of fiber internet service for the first time, at least here in Colorado.
Besides picking up Lumen’s Colorado market, AT&T will add customers in 10 other states for a total of 1 million fiber customers. Lumen’s current network could serve 4 million households if every home ordered it.
“This deal with Lumen represents a significant investment in U.S. connectivity infrastructure that will create jobs and spur economic activity in numerous regions and major metro areas across 11 states,” John Stankey, AT&T’s chairman and CEO, said in a news release. “As we advance our fiber build, we’ll serve more communities with world-class connectivity and expect to roughly double where AT&T Fiber is available by the end of 2030.”
Besides Colorado, AT&T also gains entry into Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah and Washington, according to a spokesperson. Service is already available in 21 states. Building on its current footprint and the additional Lumen territory, AT&T believes the network it will build can reach a potential of 60 million customers in five years.
For Lumen, the sale was about focusing on enterprise customers and the anticipated growth of artificial intelligence and support companies need.
“We see two distinctly important trends,” Lumen CEO Kate Johnson said in a video announcing the deal. “AI has emerged as the mission critical technology for enterprise and consumer wireless and fiber to the home demands are converging. … We’re reinventing Lumen to power the digital future for enterprise.”
Monroe, La.-based Lumen is a reinvention of CenturyLink, which renamed itself five years ago. In 2011, the company merged with Denver-based Qwest Communications to become one of the nation’s largest telecoms.
Lumen officials didn’t have ready answers to questions about the impact in Colorado. But the investment of building fiber connections from a house to larger internet pipes running through various cities is expensive and competitive. It competes mostly with Comcast for internet service, but also a number of smaller, regional startups.
But Lumen still has a large employee base in Denver, which is considered a regional headquarters, spokesperson Joe Goode said.
According to Lumen’s earnings report for the first quarter, ended March 31, the company had 1.1 million fiber-broadband customers, up from 952,000 a year earlier.
Lumen will support the transition to AT&T service for two years after the sale closes, which is expected to be final in the first half of 2026. Lumen is unloading 95% of its consumer fiber business to AT&T but will retain its internet backbone it built at the metro, state and national level.
AT&T, which rebranded its U-verse Internet consumer fiber service to AT&T Internet several years ago, said that in areas where existing wireless customers also use AT&T’s fiber service, they’re more likely to recommend AT&T.
In Colorado, the company invested more than $875 million to its local wireless network between 2019 and 2023. That included $40 million in Boulder, $45 million in Colorado Springs and $575 million in Aurora, Denver and Lakewood, local spokesperson Suzanne Trantow said.
“This transaction will enable AT&T to expand access to AT&T Fiber,” Trantow said in an email. “It will also give Colorado consumers more choice and the ability to select broadband and wireless services the way they prefer – with fiber and 5G together.”