BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. (AP) – SoVerNet, an Internet and telephone service provider, will be sold to an international communications company for more than $12 million early next year.

The Bellows Falls-based company provides 25,000 customers with Internet and telephone services. It is being sold to Atlantic Tele-Network, a communications holding company based in Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the companies announced Friday.

Tom Lyons, president of SoVerNet, said he could not discuss why the independent Vermont company is being sold, but said the new owners will bring a collection of resources with them.

Michael Prior, the chief financial officer for Atlantic Tele-Network, said the company does not plan any immediate changes to the staff.

He said SoVerNet would retain its name and corporate offices in Bellows Falls. SoVerNet employs about 80 people in the state.

“If anything, we expect to expand,” Prior said. “We are not a rival phone company moving in with layoffs to reduce operating expenses. There is a good group of people there and we expect to invest in them.”

The deal, which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2006, needs state and federal approvals, including OKs from the Vermont Public Service Board and the Federal Communications Commission.

Formed 10 years ago, SoVerNet was the brainchild of Tony Elliot, the company’s current CEO, and entrepreneurs Erik Leo and Jay Eschelman.

Steady growth for the company followed and in 2000 it merged with National Mobile Communication, a cellular phone company, and entered the field of telephone services. Today, the company has more than 80 employees in two offices in Vermont and expects to turn a $2.1 million profit this year on revenues of $12.9 million.

News of SoVerNet’s possible sale comes just days after it was announced that the company was purchasing the Internet dial-up and Web hosting portions of ValleyNet, a nonprofit organization based in Norwich.

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Information from: Rutland Herald, http://www.rutlandherald.com/