Mediacom selects Springfield as key market in $1B network expansion

Broadband competition is heating up in the market as Mediacom Communications Corp. (Nasdaq: MCCC) launches project Open Road – a $1 billion, three-year commitment to expand the company’s 1 gigabit broadband service. Locally, that means 2,000 buildings identified as targets of Mediacom’s gigabit broadband – and not already on the company’s network.

“You never know where a small business may hit it big and really need that capacity,” said Mediacom Area Operations Director Steve Bennett. “In this day and age, if you have great Internet access, you can do about anything you want.”

The New York-based company is hustling after as many homes and businesses as possible in its top four markets, which includes Springfield. Mediacom officials currently have designs completed on 30 buildings and started construction on 15 others.

Meanwhile, Altice/French Corp.-owned Suddenlink Communications elected Nixa one of its first five markets to receive 1-gigabit broadband service in 2015 – part of a $250 million Operation Gigaspeed Campaign. In downtown Springfield, City Utilities-owned SpringNet has created a solid presence. And AT&T Inc. this summer announced plans to add faster internet speeds for more businesses in Springfield through AT&T Business Fiber, which enables speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.

Mediacom officials say the recent merger between AT&T and DirecTV helped push the cable company toward the commercial side.

Cable vs. telecom
The move means chucking Mediacom’s old business model adopting the “if-we-build-it-they-will-come” philosophy.

The company now is shouldering the cost of getting its architecture to businesses to allow for connection. It’s even heading into new builds and existing structures to “light them up” – industry lingo for installing network wiring and devices, at no cost to businesses.

“We’re making the investment to add more miles to our network to reach businesses in commercial areas not already located along our network,” Mediacom Communications Director Phyllis Peters said.

Bennett identified some 70  businesses off of Independence Street and another 40 businesses on Pythian Street as areas of interest.

“There’s a lot of business right there, and the only thing they have access to is the phone company,” he said.

The huge undertaking in Springfield means more employees. Mediacom has doubled its commercial installation group and plans to add another five installers. It also works with two contracting companies, NGM Cable Contracting Co., as well as Bear Construction out of Kansas City, to help build the cable.

AT&T is a major competitor with its blanketed services, and Mediacom officials claim the telecommunications company is losing Internet subscribers because DSL speed just can’t keep up. The hustle applies there, too. In 2013-15, AT&T invested nearly $70 million in its Springfield network, and officials say they’ll continue to build out as demand requires.

Information technology veteran Jason Klein said the broadband competition is good news for Springfield’s techie crowd.

“The two are always going back and forth and trying to win market share,” said Klein, who owns and operates restaurant analytics company Logic Forte. “Right now, cable companies are staying ahead of the curve.”

Telecommunication companies lost more broadband subscribers in the second quarter than in any previous quarter, according to Leichtman Research Group Inc., while cable companies added over 550,000 subscribers during the traditionally weak quarter.

“Over the past year, cable companies have added about 3.5 million broadband subscribers, while (telecommunication companies) have had net losses of about 500,000 broadband subscribers,” said Bruce Leichtman, owner of the independent research group for the broadband, media and entertainment industries.

The customer migration doesn’t surprise Klein. He said technologies employed by cable carriers are quite a bit ahead of the telecommunications industry. For instance, Mediacom’s upgrade to the 3.1 version of Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification should mean all customers have access to gigabit speeds.

He pointed out that phone companies are now announcing gigabit speeds while cable companies are announcing the potential for 10-gigabit speeds.

Collaborative side
Once a building is “lit up” by Mediacom, the broadband connection is scalable; even with multiple businesses in one structure, each can get the broadband speeds required – from 50 megabits per second to 10 gigabit for businesses.

At Mediacom’s local office, 1533 S. Enterprise Ave., six air conditioners run at all times. Battery backups and generators protect the investment housed in a room called a “headend” – a major signal processing center full of millions of dollars in American-made new generation technology from Cisco, CASA Technology and Motorola.

The Springfield office installed the new generation technology last year and ironed out the glitches before going on to win the award for the best operating system in the company for 2015. That system is now set to go companywide.

An operations center in Des Moines, Iowa, monitors its national network. From Des Moines, techs can tell when a node is out in a Springfield neighborhood, so a technician can be dispatched.

The cable industry has a long history of competition and collaboration. CableLabs, a nonprofit innovation and research and development lab started in 1988, still is going strong. Engineers continually work to overcome technological hurdles and establish industry standards.

Their hard work and innovation allows for companies to feed off long-established architecture instead of engaging in the cost-prohibitive process of removing and replacing cabling. Cable companies have special teams charged with negotiating the use of another cable company’s architecture.

“City Utilities is a competitor and sometimes a partner, depending on the business needs. We have partnered with SpringNet,” Bennett said. “It depends on where our system is, where they are and the cost of construction. So, each one is unique.”

He said such competition and connections would help spur economic growth and development in Springfield.

“You can get almost any speed from any of these carriers,” Klein said, encouraging business owners to shop around. “Businesses just have to be smart about comparing cost. There can be a huge difference in monthly price between the different carriers depending on your location. You may have a location across town that can be better served by a different carrier.”