Equinix officially announced today it is purchasing 24 data centers from Verizon for $3.6 billion in cash. The transaction has been one of the worst kept secrets on Wall Street. In October, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said a deal was in the works, and rumors quickly surfaced that the buyer would be Equinix.

The 24 sites consist of 29 data center buildings across 15 metro areas, comprising about 2.4 million gross square feet. The acquired portfolio includes about 900 customers, with a significant number of enterprise customers new to Equinix's platform.

Verizon will continue to offer managed hosting and cloud services, but it can lease data center assets to provide these services without having to own the data centers.

The service provider’s official statement said, “The sale does not affect Verizon’s managed hosting and cloud offerings, or its data center services delivered from 27 sites in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Canada.”

Verizon does still own some data centers, however. The carrier is adding new data centers as part of its telco cloud.

For Equinix, the acquisition brings its total global footprint to 175 data centers in 43 markets and about 17 million gross square feet across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Equinix says the data centers will increase interconnection in the U.S. and Latin America; open three new markets in Bogotá, Colombia; Culpeper, Virginia; and Houston, Texas; and accelerate Equinix's penetration of the enterprise and strategic market sectors, including government and energy.

The Network Access Point (NAP) in Culpeper is especially focused on government agency customers.

Approximately 250 Verizon employees, primarily in the operations functions of the acquired data centers, will become Equinix employees. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2017.