EoW July 2012

Transatlantic cable Donna Dabbs, director of the Cleveland Small Business Development Centre, said she would have expected the total nationwide to be closer to 25 per cent. Finding the survey results bracing, Ms Dabbs said she plans to o er free forums on website development to help more businesses get online. † Ms Pledger observed that many Ohio businesses have put o developing a website, not because they are opposed to having one but because they just have not made it a priority. On this point, Mary Kaye Denning, president of the Cleveland marketing rm Manufacturing Mart, had some input. After putting on a downtown expo in February that attracted 137 attendees, she believes that local industry has awakened to the importance of an online presence. “The mindset for many manufacturers is that when you do something really well, people know you do it,” Ms Denning told the Plain Dealer . “It wasn’t until China came on the scene pitching on price that a lot of small manufacturers had to change their ways of meeting new customers.” At a cable industry conference held in Boston in May, ve of the biggest cable operators in the US announced an agreement to cooperate in providing their combined customer pool with Wi-Fi service in public places. The addition of Cox Communications and Bright House Networks builds on an existing collaboration among Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. Over the last two years, in parts of the Northeast, customers of any of the three companies have had free use of the Wi-Fi hot spots of the others. Brian Stelter, “Media Decoder” blogger for the New York Times (21 st May), observed that the hot spots (more than 50,000 nationwide in places like malls, arenas, and parks) are being marketed as a bene t for cable customers, giving them a reason not to switch providers. He wrote: “They also position broadband-via-cable as an alternative, or at least a supplement, to the services of wireless companies like AT&T and Verizon, which are more closely associated with wireless phone and data subscriptions.” Mr Stelter noted that, with little to show for the e ort, cable companies have been trying for years to come up with a wireless strategy to blunt the growing in uence of AT&T and Verizon. Cox mounted a direct challenge to the two companies by trying to sell its own wireless phone and data service. Telecom With a plan to share Wi-Fi hot spots, US cable operators seek to curb customer drift to wireless providers

But it abandoned the venture in November, citing, among other factors, “the lack of wireless scale necessary to compete in the marketplace.” Weeks later, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House made a joint announcement. Rather than build out networks of their own, they would sell their wireless spectrum to Verizon and thereafter market Verizon’s service. Cox subsequently adopted a similar plan. Cablevision has many more Wi-Fi hot spots than other cable companies – more than 35,000 – and a company statement summed up its subtly di erent thinking about the new agreement: “We believe that Wi-Fi is a superior approach to mobile data, and that cable providers are best positioned to build the highest-capacity national network.” Of related interest . . . † According to a report released 17 th May by Insight Research, the US telecommunications industry continues to expand as business spending for wireless services fuels industry revenue growth. The New Jersey-based market research rm estimates that all US businesses will spend $154 billion for telecommunications services in 2012. Business spending on wired and wireless calling will grow to $184 billion by the end of 2016, indicating a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 4.8 per cent over the period. “Telecom Services in Vertical Markets 2011-2016” nds that business spending for cellular and other wireless services is creating all of this growth. While US business spending for wireline services is essentially at over the ve years 2011-2016, wireless expenditures are expected to grow at a compound rate of 9.4 per cent. “As US business activity recovers, employment and network tra c increase,” said Insight research director Fran Caul eld. “In parallel, business applications shift to the cloud and end users shift to wireless access, driving higher network and wireless revenues for service providers.” Dorothy Fabian – USA Editor Follow us on Facebook You can keep right up to date with all the latest in the wire and cable industry, simply by signing up to be our friend on Facebook. We update the site weekly, giving you the latest news of all the happenings in the industry, from the serious company buy-outs and mergers to the more light-hearted features. Tweet us on Twitter Want news and quick? Then sign up for your Twitter account and follow us. Get short, bullet-pointed news throughout the week from the leading source of information in the wire and cable industry. You can also follow editor David Bell at @wire_editor for regular updates.

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EuroWire – July 2012