Cable companies look to ‘disrupt’ Internet market for businesses and the public services sector

Published: 2:59 AM 04/08/2012
By Josh Peterson
The Daily Caller:



Pay attention, small business owners: Cable companies are looking to be a “disruptive player” in the business Internet market, starting with your phone and broadband services.

The 2012 Spring Channel Partners Conference & Expo, held in Las Vegas during the last of week of March, brought over 3,400 people and organizations to Sin City — including The Daily Caller. Many attendees were looking to build relationships between Internet companies and business suppliers. That’s a marked difference from consumer-side technology conventions, which are often heavily focused on devices and applications.

A panel of leading cable Internet providers, including Time Warner Cable Business Class, Comcast and Charter Business, talked about the future of the Internet from the cable providers’ perspective during the Wednesday portion of the conference. All said the trend for business networks — which include education, health care and public services — were moving towards ethernet, and that ethernet might one day be delivered wirelessly.

Ryan Will, Managing Partner at Converged Network Services Group, a business solutions supplier for Time Warner Cable Business Class and cable providers, told TheDC that the communications technology landscape has changed in a way that benefits cable companies.

“The landscape has really evolved”, said Will.

“Metro ethernet, ethernet, true ethernet to the businesses is evolving more and more so the cable companies, for example, are sort of being a disruptive player now, in a good way,” Will said. “They’re offering something, I think, to the space that we haven’t seen in years, where they’re a true viable option to businesses now.”

A 2008 Los Angeles Times article reported that cable companies had banded together to take on the telecommunications industry, which in turn motivated telecommunications companies to cooperate with one another in order to “fend off” their cable rivals.

Cable and telecommunications companies are not completely at odds with one another, and alliances are not always black and white. Pending before the Department of Justice is a deal between Verizon Wireless and SpectrumCo., a joint venture between cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

Approval of the deal by the federal government would allow Verizon Wireless to purchase spectrum licenses to meet the increasing demand of its consumers for data intensive wireless services. The deal would also give the cable companies the right to sell Verizon Wireless’ products and services to their customers.