Cincinnati Bell Inc., which is seeking to buy Hawaii’s largest telecommunications company for $650 million, has been on a similar path as Hawaiian Telcom, changing its business as customers dump their landlines in favor of wireless and cable services.

Cincinnati Bell is older and larger than Hawaiian Telcom but, like the Hono­lulu-based company, is focused on increasing its fiber-optic network.

Founded in 1873 — 10 years before Hawaiian Telcom — Cincinnati Bell has transformed itself from a phone company into a technology company using fiber optics to provide customers with high-speed internet, video and local and long-distance voice services. If the deal to acquire Hawaiian Telcom is approved, the combined company will have 14,000 route miles of fiber and access to an undersea cable connecting with Asia.

“Our fiber investments have been a foundation for growth,” Cincinnati Bell CEO Leigh Fox said Monday on a conference call discussing the transaction.

Fox said the Hawaii acquisition continues that objective.

“You don’t need to be adjacent (in a neighboring state) with network assets,” Fox said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We saw how the Hawaii team has invested heavily in fiber. The way I looked at it, I’m effectively buying another city. … I view this as our first step.”

Cincinnati Bell, which serves residential and business customers in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, generated $1.2 billion in revenue last year — more than triple the $393 million brought in by Hawaiian Telcom.

The Ohio company’s 3,000 employees are more than double the 1,300 at Hawaiian Telcom.

More than a century ago, Cincinnati Bell became the first company in Cincinnati to provide direct communication between the city’s homes and businesses and was the 10th in the nation to offer telephonic service.

In October the company conducted a 1-for-5 reverse stock split to attract more interest in its shares, which had fluctuated between $2 and $4 for years and had been out of reach for investors who wouldn’t invest in a stock under $5. (In a reverse stock split, the company reduces the number of shares outstanding, which raises the price of each remaining share. In this case an investor with five shares would have only one share after the reverse split.)

“Our share price has been flat as board for several years,” Fox said in the Bloomberg interview. “If we want to move that, we need to expand. I think there will be additional steps down the line.”

On Monday, shares of the company closed down $1.35, or 7 percent, at $18. The deal was announced before the stock market opened. The stock is down 19.5 percent this year.