Time Warner Cable Business Class (NYSE: TWC), the cable MSO's business unit, on Monday secured a deal to provide fiber-based services to the Empire State Building in New York City.
Any tenant in the building will now be able to get up to 1 Gbps dedicated Internet speeds. Having this foundation means that existing and new businesses will be able to converge all of their voice, Ethernet, TV and video transport services over a fiber-based connection.
"Lighting up the Empire State Building is an important milestone in our efforts to bring fiber access to more business locations and help New York City attract international business investments," said Ken Fitzpatrick, president of Time Warner Cable Business Class for the East Region.
The win with the Empire State Building reflects the MSO's ongoing movement to expand its fiber network throughout New York City where it faces well-established incumbent fiber providers like Verizon. TWTBC also provides its standard HFC-based data, voice, and video services to businesses.
Extending more fiber to major hubs like the Empire State Building represents the growing momentum cable operators have in delivering Ethernet and fiber-based services to businesses.
Although the top telcos have traditionally dominated the Ethernet services market, cable operators--particularly Cox and Time Warner Cable--are becoming a bigger factor in the fiber-based Ethernet services race. Vertical Systems Group's mid-year Ethernet Leaderboard, which tracks the Ethernet services market in terms of port shares sold, took the took the fifth and seventh spot.
In Q2 2012, Time Warner Cable reported that total business services rose 28.5 percent year-over-year to $464 million. It attributes business services revenue growth to increases in three service segments: high-speed data and voice subscribers and growth in Metro Ethernet revenue.
For more:
- CED has this article
Special Report: Cable in the second quarter of 2012
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