Charter Communications to spin off GCI in a deal to purchase Liberty Broadband

Charter Communications, in the middle of purchasing the parent company of GCI, has decided that GCI will not be part of the deal.

GCI, a homegrown Alaska company, was purchased by Liberty in 2020. But Charter wants it to be spun off as a stand-alone public company before the deal closes in 2027. Liberty Broadband will distribute the GCI business among its shareholders.

Charter didn’t want to operate in Alaska, which is not seen as a growing market, and which has other issues, such as weather and few customers.

Read more about the state of the business deal at this Charter Communications link.

GCI was Alaska’s first technology startup, beginning in 1979 out of an apartment in Anchorage by company founders Ron Duncan and Bob Walp, who launched it by rebranding phone cards and ultimately created create a long-distance phone service provider that gave Alaskans more affordable options to communicate across the country.

At that time GCI started, long-distance phone calls cost Alaskans $1 per minute. But after GCI pioneered DAMA satellite communication to deliver in-state long distance, and introduced competitive facilities-based local phone service, costs came down dramatically.

GCI employs about 2,000 Alaskans.