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New Ulm Telecom becomes Nuvera

NEW ULM — A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, just as New Ulm Telecom hopes to continue pushing broader and better service under a new moniker.

As of June 4, the regional communications company will change its name to Nuvera Communications, Inc.

“It started a couple of years ago,” President and CEO Bill Otis said. “We started talking about how we are no longer telecom, necessarily. We have telecom but telecom is like 30 percent of our business, and 70 percent is other products and services.”

The self-designated communications company also provides services such as video and internet.

The company worked with Nametag International, Inc., to develop the name. Nuvera has three primary symbolic functions.

The first two letters acknowledge the company’s roots in New Ulm while also being a homonym for new, according to a press release.

“Vera” means truth or true in Latin, a quality the company espouses in its value statement. It also stands for versatility.

Nuvera ends on an image of a new era, to promote the ideas of growth and innovation, according to a press release.

Because it takes time to change the name in legal paperwork, New Ulm Telecom will still be the name used in official purposes until the June deadline. However, the business intends to start using Nuvera in every other capacity as soon as possible.

Nuvera has been expanding recently with two acquisitions, one earlier this year and one set to close next month.

In February, Nuvera took over operations for RRCNet, a fixed wireless network operated by Red Rock Central Schools in Lamberton.

The company intends to maintain the student work program to teach kids about installing network infrastructure and upgrade the existing hardware of the system.

A fixed wireless system broadcasts signals from a central antennae to a receiver mounted on a subscriber’s home.

By the end of June, Nuvera expects to close an approximately $42 million deal to purchase Scott-Rice Telephone Company.

Scott-Rice is being purchased from Allstream Business U.S., LLC, an affiliate of Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. according to a press release.

Otis expects the deal will be good for Nuvera due to the customer density of the region, with over 18,000 connections in communities including Prior Lake and Savage, according to a press release.

“If you put facilities in the ground, like fiber optics, the more people that you go past, the more revenue generation you can possibly have,” Otis said.

Minnesota regulators have already approved the deal, Otis said. Now they are just waiting on approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which he anticipates will go smoothly.

Connor Cummiskey can be emailed at ccummiskey@nujournal.com.

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