Birch Closes Acquisition of Ernest Communications Assets

ATLANTA, Sept. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Birch Communications, a leading IP-based communications and cloud services provider to small- and medium-sized businesses, announced today that it closed the previously announced asset purchase of the client base, accounts receivable, and physical assets of Ernest Communications.  Birch now provides service to business customers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia; Canada and Puerto Rico.  This transaction marks the 19^th acquisition since 2005.

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"The suite of solutions Ernest provided to their former business clients – voice, data and hosted/managed services – are a perfect match with the current Birch business product offerings," said Vincent M. Oddo, Birch president and CEO.  "At Birch, we strive to provide our valued business customers with the highest level of products and customer satisfaction.  This is the same approach that Ernest had taken in the past and we are thrilled to add all of their capabilities and expertise to the Birch umbrella!"

"We are excited to introduce the former Ernest business clients to our award-winning 24x7 customer service, as well as to our expanded product portfolio of leading edge IP-based services," said Birch Chief Operating Officer, Chris Aversano.  "We anticipate that they will benefit from our dedication to providing quality service via our team of support professionals.  We are also excited to welcome many of the former Ernest staff and sales partners into the Birch family."

About Birch Communications

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Birch Communications provides IP-based communications and cloud services to small and medium-sized businesses in select metropolitan areas across the United States. Birch services include: local and long distance voice, broadband Internet access, T1, PRI, bonded T1/PRI, DSL, ADSL 2+, SIP Trunking, hosted PBX, hosted e-mail, hosted applications, collocation services, visual voicemail, wireless voice, wireless data and many other communications and cloud services. Birch voice and broadband services are, in most cases, delivered using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology on the Company's secure IP-Network rather than over the public Internet.

According to Inc. 500|5000 magazine in its 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2004 rankings, Birch was one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. In 2010, Birch was also named the 7th fastest growing private business in Atlanta, and in 2011 as one of the Top 100 Private Companies in Atlanta, by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Please visit www.birch.com for more information.

SOURCE Birch Communications