Connect Holdings LLC, doing business as Brightspeed[1] is a telecommunications and Internet service provider in the United States.
The company was formed in 2022 to acquire operations in 20 states which were previously owned by Lumen Technologies.
[2][3] Lumen Technologies announced a plan to divest itself of local phone operations in twenty states in the Midwest, Southeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. in order to concentrate on their large enterprise data business inherited from their acquisition of Level 3 Communications, and to build out optical fiber in 16 western states where they continue to operate local phone operations under the CenturyLink brand, including exchanges inherited from Qwest, a Baby Bell, along with their operations in Nevada and Florida.
[3][4] Apollo Global Management, an asset management firm, acquired the divested operations for $7.5 billion plus the assumption of $1.4 billion in debt through the newly formed subsidiary Connect Holding, which later announced the trade name Brightspeed.
Others had belonged to Lumen predecessor CentruyTel prior to its 2008 merger with Embarq.