Following up on more news from The Cable Show held last week in Chicago, today we’ll hit the highlights on how the cable operators are moving forward with business services.
Following up on more news from the Cable Show held last week in Chicago, today we’ll hit the highlights on how the cable operators are moving forward with business services, beginning with some perspectives offered by Julius Genachowski, FCC chairman, along with key take-aways from a business services panel of cable industry executives that included Craig Collins, SVP at Time Warner Cable; Phil Meeks, SVP from Cox Communications; and Jim McGann, VP from Charter Communications.
In his address, Genachowski suggested that “broadband is the platform for economic activity and growth” and the fact that the U.S. is “moving fast on 4G wireless is also exciting.” He pointed out that “the wireless world has changed more dramatically in the last two and a half years than could have been imagined [with] new devices creating more opportunities for small businesses to reach more markets.” But, he added, “these [smart] phones place a demand that is 25 times greater on the network while tablets need 140 times more spectrum than [standard] wireless phones.” Genachowski concluded that “the No. 1 growth platform for small businesses uses broadband [to connect] with customers and to connect to cloud-based services.”
OTHER CABLE SHOW NEWS: Comcast, Skype announce partnership
Delivering bandwidth was also a central theme for cable operators’ plans to serve small business, as Time Warner Cable’s Craig Collins suggested, but he noted that small businesses are also placing more trust in cable company abilities to offer managed services. All three industry executives said their respective companies are expanding network reach to businesses with an expanded portfolio to match.
Jim McGann of Charter Communications echoed the need to deliver high-speed bandwidth to the business market, and he added that one of his company strategies is “to make it easy” for the business customer, including a high-touch sales and service organization.
Phil Meeks from Cox Communications noted that customer retention is also important, and his company is using multi-product bundles to both increase revenue and reduce churn. Last year, Cox reached $1 billion in business services revenue, but Meeks believes the opportunity at Cox for business services is $6 billion to $7 billion annually including a $4 billion opportunity for wireless business services.
In a side interview, Meeks said his company plans to deploy wireless after it completes its consumer rollout now in progress through a Sprint partnership. The Cox consumer wireless deployment is expected to reach 50% of potential customers by the end of 2011. Cox, which has a longer track record of offering business services than most cable operators, has already deployed a managed security offer and plans for Layer 2 VPN services next year, with software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based service on the roadmap.
But one thing is also certain in the mind of cable company executives: With four cable companies reaching $1 billion in 2010 business service revenues, the traditional phone companies won’t sit still in what is already a growing battle for SMB market share.
