By Craig Galbraith

Things are really starting to look up for channel stalwart Level 3 Communications.

After many quarters of losses following the acquisition of Global Crossing three years ago, the service provider on Tuesday followed up a first-quarter profit of $112 million by reporting a second-quarter profit of $51 million. That compares to a loss of $24 million in the second quarter of 2013.

Revenue was up nearly 4 percent, to $1.63 billion.

Growing revenue from core network services in both North and Latin America are the biggest reasons for the continued improvement. Overall, core network services revenue was up almost 7 percent from the same time last year. Enterprise core network services revenue was up 11 percent.

The numbers beat Wall Street’s expectations and come ahead of its $5.7 billion acquisition of rival tw telecom, a deal that could close later this year.

Level 3’s stock price was up more than 4 percent on the news as of 1:47 p.m. ET.