Businessweek

CenturyLink, Inc. operates as an integrated communications company. The company’s communications services include local and long-distance, network access, private line (including special access), public access, broadband, data, managed hosting (including cloud hosting), colocation, wireless, and video services. It also provides local access and fiber transport services to competitive local exchange carriers and security monitoring. The company also provides local service in portions of Idaho, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Montana, Alabama, Nebraska, Indiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Wyoming, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Michigan, Louisiana, South Carolina, Illinois, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and California. It also operates 54 data centers throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Segments Regional Markets: This segment primarily provides strategic and legacy products and services to residential consumers, state and local governments, small to medium-sized businesses, and enterprise customers that in each case are located primarily within one of the company’s six regions. Its strategic products and services offered to these customers include its private line, broadband, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), hosting, video services, and wireless services. The company’s legacy services offered to these customers consist primarily of local and long-distance service. Wholesale Markets: This segment primarily provides strategic and legacy products and services to other domestic and international communications providers. The company’s strategic products and services offered to these customers are primarily private line (including special access) and MPLS. Its legacy services offered to these customers include unbundled network elements, which allow its wholesale customers the use of its network or a combination of its network and their own networks to provide voice and data services to their customers, long-distance and switched access services. Enterprise Markets—Network: This segment primarily provides strategic and legacy network communications products and services to national and international enterprise and government customers. The company’s strategic products and services offered to these customers include its private line, broadband, MPLS, and hosting services. Its legacy services offered to these customers consist primarily of local and long-distance services. Enterprise Markets—Data Hosting: This segment primarily provides colocation, managed hosting, and cloud hosting services to national and international enterprise and government customers. Products and Services The company’s products and services include various voice, broadband, data, information technology (IT), video, and other communications services. It expanded its IT services to include cloud hosting, managed hosting, collocation, and network services. The company offers its customers the ability to bundle together various products and services. It offers integrated and unlimited local and long-distance services. Its customers could also bundle two or more services, such as broadband, video (including DIRECTV through its strategic partnership), voice, and Verizon Wireless (through its strategic partnership) services. Majority of the company’s products and services are provided using its telecommunications network, which consists of voice and data switches, copper cables, fiber-optic cables, and other equipment. The company’s network serves approximately 13.7 million access lines and forms a portion of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Strategic Services The company’s customers use its strategic services to access the Internet, connect to private networks and transmit data. It also provides value-added services and integrated solutions for its customers. The company focuses its marketing and sales efforts on these services: Private Line: Private line (including special access) is a direct circuit or channel primarily dedicated for the purpose of directly connecting two or more sites. Private line offers a high-speed, secure solution for frequent transmission of var