Telephone and Data Systems has acquired MSN Communications for US$40m in a deal meant to strengthen its IT solutions and hosted and managed services businesses.

Doug Schuck, CEO of MSN, said, “I believe this is the right time and the right company for MSN Communications to join forces with.”

Englewood, Colorado-based MSN made $99m in revenue in 2012, according to TDS.

MSN's suite of products and services includes planning, engineering, procurement, installation and management of IT infrastructure hardware solutions. Its vendor partnerships include Cisco, EMC, VMware, VCE, Appspace, NetApp and F5.

Phil LaForge, president of TDS' hosting and managed services business, said, “By joining forces with TDS HMS, MSN Communications is adding colocation and cloud services to their already robust services catalog.”

TDS announced it will construct a data center in Douglas County, located southeast of the Denver metro area. The company expects to break ground on the project early next year.

The project will be built out in five phases, covering up to 100,000sq ft total. TDS also has data centers in the Midwest region.