CenturyLink, therefore, is something that you should know about.
CenturyLink is an industry leader that delivers internet, television, phone, and data services to residential clients as well as businesses across the country. Given the large number of customers using telecommunications services, it is relevant for consumers to have insights into this significant telecom market player. Below are some key facts that would help you to have a general understanding of CenturyLink.
Company Background
CenturyLink, Inc. is a company that has its operational base in Monroe, Louisiana. It originated from the Central Telephone and Electronics Corporation established in 1968. In the many years that followed, the company went through numerous mergers and acquisitions to achieve its current size. Notable acquisitions have been the Qwest Communications deal that occurred in 2011, the Level 3 Communications deal that took place in 2017, and the merger with Sparklight which occurred in the year 2019 which is an internet service provider.
Currently, CenturyLink staff is estimated to be around 40,000 workers serving across the United States. It offers communication and data services to more than 4.5 million broadband customers and enjoys approximately one hundred data centers across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Residential Offerings
For the Home or Residential Service Consumers, CenturyLink provides broadband internet, home phone, and cable television services. It offers a fiber-optic internet connection with the fastest advertised speed of 1Gig. CenturyLink also has a fiber optic connection and accesses its consumers by using different broadband including DSL, fixed wireless, and satellite internet.
For the TV service, CenturyLink offers cable television services and video-on-demand services with DirecTV and DISH Network. This entails offering various channel packages that would meet the various needs and interests of consumers. Telephone choices can be either local and long-distance calling plans or, based on usage, plain-tariff plans.
Business and Government Services
CenturyLink also has a strong business division for its enterprise business that serves commercial customers, government entities, and wholesale broadband customers.
The products and services targeted at business clients encompass managed hosting, private and hybrid clouds, Ethernet services, security, voice and collaboration services, managed IT solutions, data centers, and many more. Served verticals range across energy, finance, gaming, manufacturing/assembly, retail/hospitality.
Government clients can rely on CenturyLink to provide them with dependable and secure networks specifically designed to support critical public safety and transportation networks, as well as national defense and security initiatives are other areas. The company caters to over a thousand organizations that exist in local, state, and federal government jurisdiction.
Network Scope and Infrastructure
CenturyLink services consumers via an almost 450000 global route mile fiber infrastructure in six continents, and approximately 150000 connected buildings. Within its operation, it has a U.S. fiber network that spans about 250,000 route miles and connects to approximately 2,200 public and private data centers.
The company has also made significant investments in advanced data centers and cloud facilities that support high-quality communications and IT services. According to the current information available, CenturyLink has about 105 third-party data center facilities worldwide, having over 2.75 million square feet of data center space.
Rebranding and Consumer Sentiment
CenturyLink, a telecommunications company, revealed in September 2020 its plans to change its corporate name to Lumen Technologies to signify a shift in business direction towards data networking and edge cloud and security services. Yet like any other company, the firm has not been spared from controversies regarding poor coverage in rural areas, disputes over billing, and long-lasting network blackouts.
When it comes to the evaluation of customer satisfaction surveys by J.D. Power and Associates as well as the ACSI, CenturyLink is ranked at its best only amongst peers it competes within the telecommunications industry. However, CenturyLink is ingrained into middle America and will continue to be a fixture in millions of U.S. consumer's homes even when they occasionally wish it wasn’t there.
Leadership
Currently, the president, CEO, and director of CenturyLink is Jeff Storey, who joined the company’s leadership team after being the president and chief operating officer since June 2018. Other senior management individuals are the executive vice president and the chief financial officer Indraneel Dev, and the executive vice president and the chief administrative officer Shaun Andrews.
Storey and his management have gradually guided CenturyLink to focus on new-generation networking, edge computing, security offerings, and enterprise and IT services for business and government. The Lumen rebranding is part of this strategic process and seeks to further this development. However, it is significant to note that the residential subscribers still represent a very important part of CenturyLink’s customers and the company still needs to continue to work on the improvement of their perception.
Summary
CenturyLink is one of the biggest telecommunication companies in the United States and has been operating in broadband, TV, and landline telephone market place which has become more competitive nowadays. It still strives to densify its networks, particularly using fiber and other new-generation technologies, to enable it to accommodate the increasing data requirements of contemporary internet solutions. It also sustains opportunities for continual growth in providing solutions to commercial businesses and government institutions for state-of-the-art networking solutions. Yet through all of this, the firm may have its headaches; there are few telecommunications providers more established than CenturyLink, which spans the country and will remain a permanent feature in the lives of millions for decades to come.
