Head to Head Review: Towerstream (OTCMKTS:TWER) versus Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN)

Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) and Towerstream (OTCMKTS:TWER) are both communication services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, risk, profitability, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Lumen Technologies and Towerstream, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Lumen Technologies	1	9	0	0	1.90
Towerstream	0	0	0	0	0.00

Lumen Technologies currently has a consensus target price of $7.86, suggesting a potential upside of 24.32%. Given Lumen Technologies’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts clearly believe Lumen Technologies is more favorable than Towerstream.

Profitability

This table compares Lumen Technologies and Towerstream’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Lumen Technologies	-8.65%	N/A	-1.56%
Towerstream	N/A	N/A	N/A

Risk & Volatility

Lumen Technologies has a beta of 1.78, suggesting that its share price is 78% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Towerstream has a beta of -560.31, suggesting that its share price is 56,131% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

66.2% of Lumen Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.3% of Lumen Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 6.4% of Towerstream shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Lumen Technologies and Towerstream”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Lumen Technologies	$12.40 billion	0.53	-$1.74 billion	($1.02)	-6.20
Towerstream	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Towerstream has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Lumen Technologies.

Summary

Lumen Technologies beats Towerstream on 5 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Lumen Technologies

Lumen Technologies, Inc., a facilities-based technology and communications company, provides various integrated products and services to business and residential customers in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Business and Mass Markets. It offers dark fiber, edge cloud services, internet protocol, managed security, software-defined wide area networks, secure access service edge, unified communications and collaboration, and optical wavelengths services; ethernet and VPN data networks services; and legacy services to manage cash flow, including time division multiplexing voice, private line, and other legacy services, as well as sells communication equipment, and IT solutions. The company also provides high speed and lower speed broadband service to residential and small business customers; local and long-distance voice services, professional services, and other ancillary services; and federal broadband and state support programs. It serves its products and services under the Lumen, Quantum Fiber, and CenturyLink brands. The company was formerly known as CenturyLink, Inc. and changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. in September 2020. Lumen Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana.

About Towerstream

Towerstream Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides fixed wireless broadband services over a wireless network transmitting over regulated and unregulated radio spectrum to commercial customers in the United States. Its wireless broadband service supports bandwidth on demand, wireless redundancy, virtual private networks, disaster recovery, bundled data, and video services. The company also offers business class Internet services, such as single tenant service that delivers fixed wireless broadband to a single client through a radio receiver/transmitter on the client’s building dedicated solely to that client; and on-net services to connect building at once and at a cost similar for one high bandwidth customer requiring point-to-point equipment. In addition, it provides temporary Internet solutions to provide solutions for a client’s short-term connection requirements in locations where fiber, copper, and cable infrastructure does not exist or is cost prohibitive. Further, the company offers wholesale Internet services to deliver dedicated Internet access and point-to-point transport solutions with bandwidth options from 5Mbps to 10mbps through fixed wireless network. It serves business customers in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Philadelphia, Las Vegas-Reno, and Providence-Newport. The company offers its services through direct sales force. Towerstream Corporation was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Middletown, Rhode Island.