SureWest Communications is expanding outside its Sacramento bounds, acquiring Everest Broadband, a privately held provider of video, voice and data services in the Missouri and Kansas suburbs of Kansas City. The deal will be for $173 million in cash.

SureWest will approximately double in size with the purchase - to about 200,000 RGUs - including 95,000 data, 54,000 video and 53,000 voice RGUs.

Everest, whose services are delivered via a fiber-ring-based network, reports 2.7 RGUs per residential customer and an acceptance rate of more than 75 percent on triple-play services.

SureWest said that for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, the combination of the two companies would have generated $66.5 million in unadjusted revenue and approximately $21 million of unadjusted EBITDA.