Dive Brief:
- Managed network service providers Spectrotel and AireSpring are merging, and private equity firm Charlesbank Capital Partners is investing in the combined firm, the companies announced Thursday. The deal is expected to close in 2026 pending regulatory approval.
- Spectrotel chief Ross Artale will be CEO of the combined company, and AireSpring’s founders will be “significant minority investors,” the company said. Grain Management, which invested in Spectrotel in 2023, remains an investor — yet another PE firm in the channel staying for a second round.
- Spectrotel adds AireSpring’s physical network assets, global aggregation capabilities and a similar channel-first sales model. “We believe that merging with AireSpring will meaningfully expand our capabilities through enhanced global reach, infrastructure, and deep technical expertise that complement our leadership in distributed enterprise and managed services,” Artale said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
Spectrotel and AireSpring are considered two of the five largest players in their market, going up against the likes of Granite Telecommunications, MetTel and GTT, Artale told Channel Dive.
“I think that we're number four and five, and I think we're still number four, but we're close to number three,” Artale said.
The market is colloquially known as telecom aggregation because the providers use wholesale relationships with major carriers to consolidate network bills for multi-location businesses. AireSpring and Spectrotel have, in recent years, highlighted their new identities as MSPs and promoted their investments in network operations centers and AI-powered network management tools. Spectrotel used much of its original funding from Grain to build automation into its ticketing and troubleshooting processes.
Spectrotel and other born-in-telco service providers are nudging their way into full-on managed IT services. Spectrotel ranked 33rd on the 2025 MSP 501 list.
It’s like a hungry caterpillar as it moves up the stack, Eclipse CTO Kirk Armstrong told Channel Dive.
“They’ve gone from this caterpillar of, ‘We sell telecom, and that’s what we do.’ We originally knew them from POTs aggregation, which is about the least sexy thing that any of us have ever done, but they've really turned into something that I'm finding enterprises are needing every day,” Armstrong said. “The market is moving to where they are.”
Spectrotel had 262 employees as of 2024, according to MSP 501 data, before it acquired Mosaic NetworX in 2025.
Artale told Channel Dive in an interview last month that its connectivity business is growing at a 16% annual clip while its managed services are growing more than 30%.“There's tens of thousands of MSPs, but there's only a few 100 managed network service providers, because it's very difficult. The barrier to entry is high,” he said.
Here's what partners are watching as integration begins: territory overlap, duplicate departments, and competing customer bases.
Armstrong said AireSpring built a reputation as a premier reseller and service provider for AT&T solutions. AT&T will now be the largest supplier for the combined company, Artale said. Artale said AireSpring’s connectivity offering is 80% fiber, while Spectrotel splits 60% broadband and 40% fiber.
ZLH Enterprises CEO Zina Hassel sees AireSpring, originally based in California but now headquartered in Florida, as having a stronger customer footprint in the Western U.S. than New Jersey-based Spectrotel. Hassel wants to know how the companies will handle duplicative roles and departments.
She said both companies work closely with technology advisors, though she has spent more time with Spectrotel.
“I've recommended people to work there through the years. They've always been a very friendly supplier partner to us,” Hassel said. “We've never had any competition with them going after our customers. So to that, I have to give them credit.”
Artale said the companies have only a 20% overlap in partners. That means channel managers won’t have to arm wrestle over accounts.
“We're selling to different TSDs; we're selling to different partners, and even when there is a little overlap in partners, it's very clear who owns the relationship,” Artale said.
