VANCOUVER, Washington - GST Telecommunications Inc. announced today it is acquiring a San Francisco Bay Area Internet service provider with something of a storied past - Whole Earth Networks.
Under the terms of the deal, the Washington-based local-phone and fiber-optic provider will pay US$9 million in cash and assumed liabilities for 18,000-subscriber Wenet.
"The acquisition will complement our existing data and Internet services and will provide an ideal opportunity for us to further expand into tier-one markets such as San Francisco," GST's chief executive officer, John Warta, said in a statement.
Whole Earth's operations will be linked to GST's regional fiber-optic network, which includes a system connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles with links to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson, Arizona.
Wenet has an old tie to The Well, the groundbreaking online community founded in 1985 in the Bay Area. Two years ago, The Well spun off Wenet, once its Internet service provider, as part of a refocusing of its business.
As one of a scad of small service providers that have appeared during the Web boom, Wenet has searched for a way to grab a secure niche in the business. One idea put forward last year: using Internet protocol telephony to offer phone services to businesses.
