CenturyLink has changed its name in a rebranding of itself, to Lumen Technologies, or simply Lumen. At the opening of trading on September 18, 2020, the company stock ticker officially changed from "CTL" to "LUMN". Since then, other legal and regulatory hurdles have been in process to formally change the name of the company.
Today also marks a fourth name change in the works for Centurylink Field, as the Seahawks and Lumen announced today that the Seattle stadium will be renamed Lumen Field. This new name is pending approval later today by the Washington State Public Stadium Authority, the Washington State public corporation owner of the stadium.
CenturyLink, long associated with antiquated regional telecoms, copper-based phone lines, and unexciting growth, is touting its global fiber-optic network that will be crucial to future communications applications. The rebrand is a way to get away from that perception among customers and investors, and be seen as a "next-gen" tech platform rather than an "old" telecom.
CenturyLink - as Lumen - aims to be the core fiber backbone that enables the fourth industrial revolution, more commonly known as the Internet of Things. Within that, the press release about the name change highlighted adaptive networking, network security applications, communication and collaboration solutions, and importantly, edge computing. Edge computing will bring workloads and processing closer to customers in order to reduce latency and should require even more new fiber connections to and from cloud data centers and end customers.
As consumers cut their home phone lines in favor of wireless providers and switch off DSL in favor of faster alternatives, CenturyLink is focusing on its fiber network as a way to survive into the future. The residential and small business fiber is getting a rebrand as "Quantum Fiber," perhaps hoping to differentiate new fiber builds from its older CenturyLink Fiber legacy offerings. CenturyLink revealed that it lost 29,000 consumer broadband customers in its most recent quarter, but on new fiber connections of 100 mbps and above, it gained 68,000 customers. As Lumen's existing fiber network ends around Pateros and Brewster, it seems unlikely that the Methow Valley, and the rest of Okanogan county, will see any fiber offerings from the new Lumen company for years to come.
What does all this mean for you? Don't expect changes on your bills. The CenturyLink brand is not going away. Local residential and most small business customers will continue to receive their services and customer support over traditional copper-based networks from CenturyLink, which will operate as a separate brand under Lumen. The company headquarters will remain in Monroe, Louisiana.
