Birch Communications signs deal to acquire AstroTel

Atlanta-based Birch Communications, which specializes in providing IP-based telecom and managed services to small and medium-sized businesses, has signed a definitive agreement to buy the operating assets of AstroTel, which include IP-based network spanning the Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota and Bradenton markets on Florida's west coast.

When the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, closes, it will mark the fourteenth major acquisition that Birch has completed since 2006. The company said its strategy is to increase customer density and expand the reach of its state-of-the-art private IP-Network through both "tuck-in" acquisitions and organic growth.

Birch provides managed communications and information technology services-- including local and long distance voice, broadband Internet access, T1, PRI, bonded T1, mobile voice and data, e-mail, voicemail, prepaid and more-- to a target market of small and medium-sized businesses in select metropolitan areas within 38 states across the United States. Birch voice and data services are, in most cases, delivered using VoIP technology on the company's secure IP-Network rather than over the public Internet.

For more:
- see this release

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