Shentel Business signs MSA with a large hyperscaler
Key Highlights
- Shentel signed a master service agreement with an unnamed hyperscaler data center operator, positioning itself for future service opportunities.
- The company’s fiber network, spanning over 19,000 miles, connects major data center hubs and benefits from recent acquisitions like Horizon Telecom.
- Existing fiber infrastructure near data centers provides a cost-effective advantage, reducing capital investment needs for service deployment.
- Commercial business segment shows strong growth, with over 180,000 monthly sales bookings and 209,000 new locations installed in Q2.
- Fiber revenue increased by 21.4%, now representing over half of total revenue, surpassing incumbent broadband markets for the first time.
Shentel enhanced its fiber network reach by purchasing the former Horizon Telecom. Besides giving it new Glo Fiber expansion markets in Ohio, the acquisition doubled the size of its commercial fiber business.
One of Shentel's advantages is that it has built out facilities near some of the data centers in the markets it operates in today.
“We have existing fiber and existing conduit in proximity to some of these data centers, which gives us an advantage where we can provide the service without having to make as significant a capital investment as other providers may,” McKay said. “Our operating footprint also provides a strategic advantage with proximity to major data center hubs in Ashburn, Virginia and Columbus, Ohio.”
Business opportunities ramp
Shentel continues to see gains in its commercial business segment.
Driven by strong demand across commercial and enterprise customers, including wireless carriers, wholesale customers, and school systems, Shentel’s second quarter incremental monthly sales bookings exceeded 180,000.
Its service delivery team installed 209,000 locations in new monthly revenue. Also, its sales and network operations teams helped reduce average monthly compression and disconnect churn to 0.4%.
To support new growth opportunities, McKay said Shentel has “added additional resources on the commercial side, particularly on the SMB side.”
Shentel’s commercial fiber revenue grew 1.9 million, or 9.8% year over year.
“This growth was driven by a combination of recurring revenue growth in the enterprise and carrier verticals, a non-cash sales-type lease of customer equipment in the second quarter of 26, and a negative non-cash deferred revenue adjustment for one of our national wireless carrier customers in the second quarter of 2025,” said James Volk, CFO of Shentel.
Likewise, Shentel saw fiber revenue, which is a combination of its consumer Glo and commercial fiber segments, growing 21.4% to 51% of total revenue in the second quarter.
Volk noted that the second quarter of 2026 was “the first time fiber revenue exceeded incumbent broadband markets and RLEC revenue.”
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