Lumen Technologies Is ‘Not Your Mama’s Lumen’ As CEO Introduces Cloud Connected Ecosystem
‘The newest piece of the puzzle is working with technology companies to integrate our digital network solutions directly into their offerings … [this will] not only yield frictionless customer experiences, it gives Lumen scale and commercial reach by turning any technology company into a sell-with and sell-through channel partner,’ Lumen CEO Kate Johnson said during the company’s Q2 2025 earnings call on Thursday evening.
Lumen Technologies, formerly CenturyLink, is focused on enterprise services and growing through multi-cloud and Network-As-A-Service (NaaS) offerings. To get it done, the telecom-turned technology provider is integrating its digital network offerings to make them available in cloud marketplaces, according to Lumen President and CEO Kate Johnson.
Lumen last quarter introduced Lumen Connectivity Fabric, a set of network services that can be remotely managed via the cloud. Services on the digital platform include connectivity, infrastructure, security and communications services, as well as media and entertainment. Taking the next step in that strategy, Lumen took to its Q2 2025 earnings call on Thursday evening to introduce Lumen Connected Ecosystem that customers can use to purchase, provision and manage their network services as easily as they do their cloud solutions, such as (NaaS), Johnson said.
The company already has the three biggest cloud service providers connected to its physical infrastructure and Lumen serves more than 1,500 data centers across the U.S., a number that is growing, she said.
“The newest piece of the puzzle is working with technology companies to integrate our digital network solutions directly into their offerings … [this will] not only yield frictionless customer experiences, it gives Lumen scale and commercial reach by turning any technology company into a sell-with and sell-through channel partner,” she said.
Most networking and connectivity solutions are purchased separately from tech solutions, but with Lumen’s ecosystem, customers will be able to purchase their tech solutions bundled and integrated with lumen networking services available in online marketplaces, Johnson said.
“We started by leveraging our physical network to create the backbone for AI. Then, we built a digital platform to make it easy for customers to consume network services in a cloud-like consumption model. Now, we’re tying it all together into a digital commercial ecosystem so that our fiber network can help fulfill the ambition of AI. I think you can all agree, this is not your mama’s Lumen,” she said.
Lumen counts close to 1,000 large enterprises and well-known brands as current NaaS customers, including GE Vernova, Best Buy, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
As part of its enterprise push, Lumen in May confirmed reports that it was offloading its consumer business in a $5.75 billion cash sale of its 11-state mass market fiber-to-home business to Dallas-based AT&T. Via the terms, Lumen will retain the core infrastructure used for enterprise customers. AT&T will get about 95 percent of Quantum Fiber, about 4 million fiber locations and about 1 million subscribers. Lumen will keep enterprise fiber customers and mass market copper-based customers.
The telecom said that the deal was still set to close in the first half of 2026.
Q2 2025 Financial Results
Lumen categorizes 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 growth of 8.5 percent during the quarter. The Grow segment accounted for 48 percent of the company’s total business revenue during the quarter and Chris Stansbury, Lumen’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said that the Grow segment will account for more than half of the company’s business by next year.
Lumen’s Nurture segment includes VPN Data Networks and Ethernet services and accounted for 25 percent of its business during the quarter but declined 18 percent. The Harvest segment, which houses the carrier’s legacy services, including voice, represented 17 percent of Lumen’s Q2 2025 business revenues and declined 2.1 percent.
Lumen’s Large Enterprise segment dipped 2.3 percent to $732 million during Q2 compared with revenues of $749 million a year ago. The midmarket enterprise segment declined 11 percent to $500 million in the first quarter compared to $562 million in Q2 2024. North American Enterprise Channels dropped 2.4 percent to $1.72 billion from $1.76 billion a year prior. Overall, Lumen’s total Business segment revenue dipped 3 percent, totaling $2.49 billion in the second quarter compared to $2.58 billion a year ago.
Public sector revenue, on the other hand, increased 8.2 percent year over year to $486 million compared to $483 million in Q2 2024.
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 second quarter of 2025 that ended June 30, Lumen missed Wall Street’s expectations of revenues of $3.11 billion with reported total revenue of $3.09 billion, which represented a decline of 5.5 percent compared to $3.27 billion in the year-ago period. The company reported a net loss of $915 million for its most recent quarter compared to a net loss of $49 million for the same period a year prior.
The company’s stock sank more than 4 percent in after-hours trading Thursday to $4.23.