The news follows on from the approvals from the US Department of Justice earlier last month and the California Public Utilities Commission. This marks the final regulatory clearance required to close the deal, aside from the other usual closing conditions.
Commenting on the news, John F Jones, senior vice president for public policy and government relations at CenturyLink, said: "The FCC's approval of CenturyLink's acquisition of Level 3 is great news and means we now have all the regulatory approvals we need to close the transaction. We anticipate closing the transaction effective November 1, 2017."
Back in September, closing of the deal was delayed due to the pending regulatory approvals it still required at the time.
In addition to to California (as approved by the California Public Utilities Commission), the states of Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, and the District of Columbia all approved the acquisition. The transaction has also received regulatory clearance from Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Texas and Puerto Rico.
The new combined entity will offer customers a broader and more complementary range of services and solutions and enable the advanced technology and growing bandwidth needs of its various customers.
Speaking exclusively to Capacity, CenturyLink CTO Aamir Hussain said that the company had identified almost $1 billion worth of potential synergies from the merger, most of it coming from operational costs around its network. Hussain also said the deal will make CenturyLink "a worldwide player" and "number two in the world in enterprise".
To read the full interview with Aamir Hussain, in which he discusses how CenturyLink will merge its network with Level 3, click here.
