The telecom-turned technology provider took to its Q1 2025 earnings call on Thursday evening to introduce Lumen Connectivity Fabric, a set of network services that can all be remotely managed via the cloud.
Lumen Technologies, formerly CenturyLink, is no longer bound by the traditional, “friction-filled limitations” of physical telecom infrastructure and analog business processes. Rather, the telecom-turned-service provider has set its sights on growth by way of digital, multi-cloud and Network-As-A-Service (NaaS) offerings, according to Lumen President and CEO Kate Johnson.
To that end, Lumen took to its Q1 2025 earnings call on Thursday evening to introduce Lumen Connectivity Fabric, a set of network services that can all be remotely managed via the cloud. Services on the digital platform include connectivity, infrastructure, security and communications services, as well as media and entertainment. All services will be available by the end of 2025, the company said.
Lumen will continue to build and acquire new services to add to the digital platform, Johnson added.
“Telecom hasn’t innovated in a long, long time. We made some really tough choices two years ago to rethink how we spend our capital, and you’re seeing the fruits that those investments now with the platform and with value that we’re delivering to enterprises, and it’s still early in our transformation,” she said, as Lumen continues on its mission to build the backbone for AI.
That backbone, Johnson said, involves continuing to widen Lumen’s “moat,” or its expansive fiber network.
Adoption of Lumen’s NaaS ports and services deployed grew quarter over quarter, which the company said is “strengthening” its confidence in the opportunities around consumption-based IT models.
Q1 2025 Financial Results
Lumen in 2022 split its portfolio of business services into three segments. The Grow segment, which includes the carrier’s higher-margin offerings, such as SASE, security, cloud, and UC collaboration services, saw maintained growth of 9.9 percent during the quarter. The Grow segment accounted for 48 percent of the company’s total business revenue during the quarter.
Lumen’s Nurture segment includes VPN Data Networks and Ethernet services and accounted for 26 percent of its business during the quarter but declined 16.6 percent. The Harvest segment, which houses the carrier’s legacy services, including voice, represented 16 percent of Lumen’s Q1 2025 business revenues and declined 9.8 percent.
Lumen’s Large Enterprise segment dipped 3.7 percent to $737 million during Q1 compared with revenues of $765 million a year ago. The midmarket enterprise segment declined 11.1 percent to $513 million in the first quarter compared to $577 million in Q1 2024. North American Enterprise Channels fell 1.7 percent to $1.73 billion from $1.76 billion a year prior. Overall, Lumen’s total Business segment revenue dipped 2.6 percent, totaling $2.52 billion in the first quarter compared to $2.59 billion a year ago.
Public sector revenue, on the other hand, increased 14.7 percent year over year to $483 million compared to $421 million in Q1 2024.
Lumen in October 2023 finalized the $7.5 billion sale of its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) business, which included its consumer, small business, wholesale and mostly copper-served enterprise customers and assets in 20 states to Brightspeed, a two-year old company that was launched by former Verizon executives.
Chris Stansbury, Lumen’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, at the end of last year hinted at the potential future sale of Lumen’s consumer business as the company continues to focus on enterprise customers. Then in March, reports surfaced that AT&T was in talks to buy Lumen’s consumer fiber operations in a deal worth more than $5.5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter at the time. AT&T’s John Stankey declined to comment directly on the possible deal during the Dallas-based carrier’s earnings last month, but the CEO said he’s “always” open to the right inorganic growth activity that could help the company accelerate in the market.
Lumen, during Wednesday’s earnings call, declined to comment on the possible sale of the business unit, but Stansbury said that the company “has been very consistent in saying we’re proud of the consumer fiber platform we built, but the investment and return profile are not consistent with our desire to focus on the enterprise connectivity and services market.”
Monroe, Louisiana-based Lumen has largely shifted its operations in recent years towards business services, which now account for about 75 percent of its revenue.
For the first quarter of 2025 that ended March 31, Lumen beat Wall Street’s expectations with reported total revenue of $3.18 billion, which represented a decline of 3.3 percent compared to $3.29 billion in the year-ago period. The company reported a net loss of $201 million for its most recent quarter, compared to net income of $57 million for same period a year before.
