Comcast beefs up its mid-sized business capabilities

With little fanfare, Comcast quietly carved out an agreement to acquire Chicago-based CLEC Cimco Communications. Although Comcast is being tight-lipped about the financial details of the acquisition, the driver behind the deal is pretty clear: use the assets to target mid-sized business customers with up to 250 employees better. According to a report in Cable Digital News, privately-held Cimco is not only profitable with a 2,300 strong customer base, but the majority of its data and phone customer base resides in Chicago--a market where it has a dominant cable operator presence.

Since it began its major business services push in 2006, Comcast has focused primarily on SMBs with 1-20 employees providing DOCSIS-based services in markets such as Chicago over its existing HFC network. Comcast's work in the business sector appears to be paying off. During the second quarter, Comcast's business unit reported $198 million in revenues, a 51 percent year-over-year increase. Comcast believes that the small and mid-sized business market could be combined for a $30 billion revenue opportunity. While the Cimco acquisition gives it a bigger foothold into the Chicago business services market, the question that everyone will starting asking now is will Comcast make other larger CLEC acquisitions?

For more:
- Cable Digital News has this article

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