Wholesale telco Vocus Communications (AXS:VOC) has moved to gain a dark fibre offering with its acquisition of network operator, Digital River Networks.
The deal, worth $3.95 million in cash, is expected to be finalised within the next four weeks subject to certain conditions.
Under the terms of the sale, Vocus will acquire the network operator’s 59 kilometres of dark fibre, situated predominantly in the Melbourne and Sydney CBD areas, as well as the associated customer contracts for the supply of dark fibre and metro ethernet services.
“The addition of a dark fibre network brings a new product set to the company allowing Vocus to provide bundled metro fibre services with existing data centre and IP Transit products on a network entirely owned by Vocus,” Vocus chief executive, James Spenceley said in a statement.
According to Spenceley, the acquisition will assist the company in providing infrastructure to the telco, cloud computing and retail ISP markets, with the company noting further plans to invest in the fibre network.
The transaction is expected to be earnings accretive in the second half of FY12 and funded from existing cash reserves.
As reported by Computerworld Australia, Vocus made its second major move into the data centre market recently acquiring Perth iX for approximately $7 million.
The deal will bring a 536 square metre facility into Vocus’ expanding portfolio, which began with the $5.9 million acquisition of Sydney and Melbourne-based data centres from E3 Networks in October last year.
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