**Editor’s Note: Please click here for a recap of the biggest channel-impacting merger and acquisition news from August.**

On the heels of its $100 million purchase of Global Capacity, GTT Communications has acquired Transbeam, a provider of managed data and voice services, for $28 million in cash.

GTT said the combination: adds top U.S. clients in the hospitality, entertainment and retail segments; expands its geography throughout the Northeast, and augments its managed SD-WAN service with broadband, wireless and Ethernet over Copper capabilities, complementing the assets gained through its Global Capacity acquisition.

GTT’s Gina Nomellini

Gina Nomellini, GTT’s chief marketing officer, tells Channel Partners that her company’s partners will have an even stronger set of network assets and service capabilities underpinning the portfolio of cloud networking services available to sell to their clients.

“GTT has a substantial opportunity to upsell the full breadth of our service offering to Transbeam’s clients in these (hospitality, entertainment, retail) vertical markets,” she said. “For example, GTT’s branch networking and PCI-compliant managed services will be a good fit for Transbeam clients in the hospitality and retail industries. Likewise, Transbeam has unique service capabilities, such as their connectivity services for events, that are potential add-on services for GTT clients in all three of these sectors.”

Transbeam agent partners will benefit from access to a much broader set of services, including a tier 1 global IP network “ranked among the top five in the industry,” Nomellini said.

“The enhanced SD-WAN offering will be especially beneficial to Transbeam partners, especially given the robustness of GTT’s SD-WAN service and the sharp rise in client demand for this service,” she said. “Transbeam partners will also benefit from GTT’s channel-partner support including access to technical resources, product training, marketing collateral, and its EtherVision client portal, which are areas of continued investment.”

GTT is actively expanding its channel partner program and the Transbeam partner platform will be integrated during the coming months, Nomellini said.

“A chief aim of our channel partner program initiative is to streamline the number of partners, eliminating the inactive ones,” she said. “We intend to retain those agent partners that actively sell into our target market of medium and large enterprise clients and align with our partner profile.”

“This transaction delivers substantial benefits to our combined companies,” said Marc Sellouk, Transbeam’s founder and CEO. “GTT gains diverse network capabilities in the Northeast and a set of marquee clients. We thank our employees for their outstanding service and our clients for their ongoing loyalty. We look forward to a seamless integration with GTT over the coming months.”

P2 Telecom’s Bill Patchett

Bill Patchett, P2 Telecom’s CEO, said his company has had a great working relationship with Transbeam over the years “and their extensive product portfolio and service delivery was key to many … customer successes.”

“Now, with GTT’s global network and resources, we can expand our relationship even further,” he said.

In January, GTT completed its acquisition of Hibernia Networks, a provider of global, high-speed network connectivity offerings, and owner of terrestrial and subsea fiber assets.