Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Cable MSOs grow Business sector

Cable MSOs are shifting their focus to providing broadband access, as well as TV.  Between licensing costs, growing competition, and the prospect of cord-cutting, most of the big MSOs are losing subscribers and seeing shrinking profit margins on the TV side - while margins and subscribers for broadband services continue to do well.  The big MSOs are also entering the business services markets.
  They've had some hard lessons to learn along the way, from the higher expected standards for reliability and quality of service, to the different needs and focus of business customers.  In the business world, having a big data pipe wasn't enough.  So MSOs upgraded and refocused business lines, and established separate sales and service staff dedicated to business services.  Now, the big 5 MSOs offer various flavors of Gigabit Ethernet services, along with a range of other business services.  Other wholesale services for business include wireless backhaul, voice and video traffic, and leased private networking across locales.
  • Cox provides Ethernet and other wholesale services to 200,000 business customers in 38 markets, and reported earnings of $1.48 billion in 2012
  • Time Warner has announced a $25 million expansion of its fiber network in New York business districts, and offers business services in 29 states.  Q4 2012 business operations brought in $515 million
  • Charter is the only one of these five providing Layer 3 VPN services at this point, and reported business revenues of $168 million in 2012.  Its active in 11 markets
  • Cablevision's Lightpath business operations has focused on public and health sectors as well as business in the New York metro area.  It's developed distinctive service bundles for the education, healthcare, and government sectors, and reported $81.8 million in Q4 2012 revenues.
  • Comcast only launched its business services division in 2010, making a splash by purchasing two local business networking firms (Cimco & NGT Telecom). The investment's paying off, with business services being Comcast's fastest growing segment, with operations in 20 markets and a reported $660 million in Q4 2012 revenue.

Source -  Cable MSOs: A phoenix rising in the Ethernet industry,  FierceTelecom

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