Frontier Communications, which provides phone, internet and cable TV service in Portland’s suburbs and some rural parts of Oregon, said Wednesday it has sold its Northwest operations for $1.4 billion.

The buyers are two investment firms, WaveDivision Capital and Searchlight Capital Partners.

The deal covers 350,000 residential and business customers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. That portion of the business had $619 million in revenue in the 12 months ending March 31, according to the companies, and profits of $46 million.

Frontier and the buyers said they hope to close the deal in the next year.

“Our plan is to invest further in our markets, specifically by extending fiber to more homes and businesses, to bring them the high speeds they want," WaveDivision chief executive Steve Weed said in a written statement. He formerly ran Wave Broadband, a Northwest telecom company that sold for $2.4 billion in 2017.

WaveDivision gave no indication of how it would fund that fiber investment or how widespread it would be. The investment firm said it hasn’t determined what it will call its new operations.

Most of Frontier’s Northwest territory dates to 2010, when the Connecticut company paid $8.6 billion to buy Verizon’s phone and internet operations in 14 Western states. That transaction included about 250,000 Oregon phone lines, plus high-speed fiber-optic connections that Verizon ran to many homes shortly before selling.

Frontier and other regional phone companies have struggled tremendously in subsequent years customers shed their landline phones and the old-line telecom providers faced intense competition from large internet services such as Comcast.

Frontier had about a quarter of Oregon’s phone business in 2017, according to the most recent data from the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. Frontier’s phone business was down to just 133,000 lines that year.

Frontier’s stock has collapsed in recent years, plunging from a value of $125 a share in 2015 to just $1.85 now. It climbed nearly 7% Wednesday, though, on news of the deal.

Companywide, Frontier reported $8.6 billion in revenue last year and losses of $750 million. It said Wednesday’s deal “reduces Frontier’s debt and strengthens liquidity.”

WaveDivision Capital, headquartered near Seattle, said its management has “a proven track record of customer satisfaction.” The territory it acquired from Frontier includes Washington and east Multnomah counties and many rural parts of the state.

This article has been updated with a statement from WaveBroadband.

-- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699