Cogent buys FNSI

Cogent Communications on Friday announced it had completed the acquisition of small Midwest ISP Fiber Network Solutions Inc., adding more than 400 small and medium-sized business customers to its network.

FNSI, a privately held company headquartered in Columbus Ohio, has five collocation facilities in four markets in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer said the optical carrier transitioned the last of FNSI’s customers over to Cogent 80 Gb/s backbone by 6 a.m. on Friday without a hitch.

“This is a logical extension of our strategy of acquiring key customers,” Schaeffer said. “This acquisition was particularly advantageous. Many of FNSI’s customers are located next to our buildings and transitioning them onto our backbone wasn’t difficult.”

Though Cogent did not disclose any financial details, officials with the company said the deal was an all-stock transaction, with Cogent assuming FNSI’s debt. FNSI brings in $6 million in revenue annually. Though FNSI owned its own facilities it couldn’t justify the cost of a building a backbone and therefore leased capacity from other carriers.

The FNSI acquisition is the sixth Cogent has made in the last two years, most of which have target customers rather than network assets.