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ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS | 12 Months Ended
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Dec. 31, 2020
ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS |
ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS | 1. ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS The Company strives to be a leading platform for the operation of, and investment in, smaller and specialty market communications services and technology companies. The Company has a long track record of delivering critical infrastructure-based solutions to underserved markets. The Company’s majority-owned operating subsidiaries provide facilities-based communications services, along with related information technology solutions in the United States, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. The Company also has non-controlling investments in several communications and technology companies, and it continues to consider opportunities to make controlling and minority investments in businesses that it believes have the potential for generating substantial and relatively steady cash flows over extended periods of time or have technologies or business models that might prove valuable to the Company’s main operating subsidiaries or create significant longer term growth potential for the Company as a whole. ​ At the holding company level, the Company oversees the allocation of capital within and among its subsidiaries, affiliates, minority investments, and stockholders. The Company also has developed significant operational expertise and resources that it uses to augment the capabilities of its individual operating subsidiaries. Over the past ten years, the Company has built a platform of resources and expertise to support its operating subsidiaries and to improve their quality of service, and customer acquisition, retention, and satisfaction while maintaining optimal operating efficiencies. The Company has a number of shared service functions, including billing, network and engineering and customer service, and the parent company also employs personnel with specialized skills that provide greater economies of scale and expertise than would typically be available at the operating subsidiary level. ​ The Company was incorporated in Delaware in 1987, began trading publicly in 1991 and spun off more than half of its operations to stockholders in 1998. The Company actively evaluates potential acquisitions, investment opportunities and other strategic transactions, both domestic and international, that it believes has the potential for generating steady excess cash flows over extended periods of time. In addition, the Company considers non-controlling investments in earlier stage businesses that it considers strategically relevant, and which may offer long-term growth potential for us, either individually, or as research and development businesses that can support the Company’s operating subsidiaries in new technology, product, and service development and offerings. The Company has used the cash generated from its established operating units, and any asset sales, to re-invest in its existing businesses, to make strategic investments in additional businesses, and to return cash to the Company’s investors. The Company provides management, technical, financial, regulatory, and marketing services to its subsidiaries and typically receive a management fee equal to a percentage of their revenues, which is eliminated in consolidation. For further information about the Company’s financial segments and geographical information about its operating revenues and assets, see Notes 1 and 15 to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Report. ​ Through December 31, 2020, the Company had identified three operating segments to manage and review its operations and to facilitate investor presentations of its results. Those three operating segments are as follows: ​
| ● | International Telecom. Businesses contained in the Company’s international telecom segment offer a mix of fixed data, internet and voice services (“Fixed”) as well as retail mobility (“Mobility”) services to customers in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Guyana and the US Virgin Islands. The Company offers fixed video services in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the US Virgin Islands and managed information technology services (“Managed Services”) to enterprise customers in all its markets. The Company also offers services to other telecom providers (“Carrier Services”), such as international long-distance, transport and access services, and roaming from such telecom providers’ customers traveling in its network service areas.
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| ● | US Telecom. In the United States, primarily in the Southwest, the Company offers Carrier Services, including wholesale roaming services, the leasing of critical network infrastructure such as towers and transport facilities, and site maintenance. The Company also provides Fixed, Mobility, and Managed Services to its retail and enterprise customers, and private network services to enterprise customers, municipalities and other service providers.
​ ●Renewable Energy. In India, the Company provided distributed generation solar power to commercial and industrial customers through January 27, 2021. Through November 6, 2018, the Company also provided distributed generation solar power in the United States in Massachusetts, California and New Jersey. See Sale of Renewable Energy Operations for further details. ​ The following chart summarizes the operating activities of the Company’s principal subsidiaries, the segments in which it reports its revenue and the markets it served as of December 31, 2020: ​
​ | ​ | ​ | ​ | ​ | ​ | ​
Segment |  | Services |  | Markets |  | Tradenames
International Telecom |  | Mobility |  | Bermuda, Guyana, US Virgin Islands |  | One, GTT+, Viya
​ |  | Fixed |  | Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Guyana, US Virgin Islands |  | One, Logic, GTT+, Viya
​ | ​ | Carrier Services | ​ | Bermuda, Guyana, US Virgin Islands | ​ | One, GTT+, Viya
​ | ​ | Managed Services | ​ | Bermuda, Cayman Islands, US Virgin Islands, Guyana | ​ | Fireminds, One, Logic, GTT+, Viya
US Telecom |  | Mobility |  | United States (rural markets) |  | Choice, Choice NTUA Wireless, Geoverse
​ | ​ | Fixed | ​ | United States | ​ | Commnet, Choice, Choice NTUA Wireless, Deploycom
​ | ​ | Carrier Services | ​ | United States | ​ | Commnet, Essextel
​ |  | Managed Services |  | United States |  | Choice
Renewable Energy | ​ | Solar | ​ | India | ​ | Vibrant Energy
​ The Company actively evaluates potential acquisitions, investment opportunities and other strategic transactions, both domestic and international, that meet its return on investment and other criteria. In addition, the Company considers non-controlling investments in earlier stage businesses that it considers strategically relevant, and which may offer long-term growth potential for the Company, either individually, or as research and development businesses that can support the Company’s operating subsidiaries in new product and service development and offerings. The Company provides management, technical, financial, regulatory, and marketing services to its subsidiaries and typically receives a management fee equal to a percentage of their revenues which is eliminated in consolidation. For information about the Company’s financial segments and geographical information about its operating revenues and assets see Notes 1 and 15 to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Report.

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