Jonathan Chaplin in a note on Friday, suggested a scenario where Verizon acquires Lumen and spins out its own enterprise business along with Level 3. Verizon has about 18 million fiber locations growing by 500,000 annually, so adding Lumen and Frontier could take fiber locations to 43 to 47 million by the end of the decade, he wrote.
Jonathan Chaplin leads the US Communications Services research team. Prior to joining NSR he led the Telecom, Cable & Satellite research teams at Credit Suisse and JPMorgan where he was recognized as a top ranked analyst and stock picker by Institutional Investor, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.