Fiber Internet Cincinnati

Bell finds growth opportunities

Cincinnati Bell is introducing faster wireless technology, planning to accelerate deployment of Fioptics fiber-optic service for video and broadband, and has begun marketing energy services to its customers as it battles erosion of its traditional phone business and competition from national providers.

Last month Bell, which has about 500,000 wireless customers in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, launched its fourth generation wireless technology aimed at countering faster 4G services introduced here last year by rivals AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.

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With the explosion of mobile apps, video and other wireless data, “speed is important,” says Ted Torbeck, president and general manager of Cincinnati Bell Communications.

Bell, which is increasing its spending on wireless this year to about $20 million from $12 million last year, says testing indicates its 4G system, which involves an electronics upgrade at its cell sites and linking them with fiber-optic cable, offers download speeds about twice as fast as competitors.

Bell is planning a major media push to promote its 4G system. It is currently offering the Huawei Ascend 4G smartphone to its customers with a buy-one, get-one free offer for $99 after mail-in rebate. Torbeck says Bell will add four or five other phones and tablets to its 4G offerings later this year.

Smartphones currently represent about 28 percent of Cincinnati Bell Wireless sales. That segment is expected to keep growing as mobile data demand increases.

After slowly expanding its Fioptics fiber-optic cable system past about 80,000 in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky over the last three years, Bell is planning to nearly double coverage past an additional 70,000 homes this year by further deploying fiber to individual neighborhoods and introducing Internet Protocol TV technology to extend the reach of fiber to individual homes.

IPTV technology is one way phone companies are getting into video delivery. It overcomes one of the disadvantages of phone lines, which can carry only a few channels, compared with hundreds for cable. An IPTV set-top box sends messages through the phone line, telling the delivery system which channels to send back.

Allied Fiber extends its dark fiber network to DuPont Fabros' data ...

Allied Fiber's latest deal to bring its dark fiber network to data center provider DuPont Fabros Technology illustrates the growing notion that the data center is becoming telecom's new central office (CO).

Set to be operational in Q4 2011, the new connection will provide long-haul dark fiber capacity to DFT's Piscataway, NJ data center, which it refers to as NJ1.

As a reciprocal agreement, Allied Fiber will gain access to DFT's 3-Lateral Underground Duct Bank in Piscataway where it will get diverse physical access to NJ1. An additional benefit of the agreement is that Allied Fiber's network will provide a bypass Manhattan Island with a direct route from New Jersey directly to Chicago.

In turn, DFT, which becomes a member of Allied Fiber's Dark Fiber Community, will be able to extend Allied Fiber's 100-plus service provider members services to its customers.

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