Wireline voice erosion is an ongoing reality for every traditional telco, but Windstream thinks that the right weapon to battle this problem is its $49.99 double-play data/local and long-distance voice bundle with a "price for life guarantee."
Speaking at this week's Credit Suisse Global Media and Communications Conference, Windstream's CFO Tony Thomas said that its bundled offering, which was launched last September, has enabled the ILEC to increase broadband penetration and drive down voice line losses in 2009 to fewer than five percent.
"When you look at our consumer offering, it is anchored around broadband and bundling," said Thomas adding that residential customers will purchase an affordable wireline voice line that's bundled with broadband DSL "for the convenience of making a long-distance call from their home."
During the fourth quarter, Windstream lost about 35,000 voice lines (a slight increase over Q3 09), but its broadband subscriber base increased 10 percent with the addition of 27,000 new customers. As of the end of 2009, Windstream had a little over 1.1 million broadband subscribers and it lost 153,100 voice lines.
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