Kettering, Ohio, Customers Soon Can Buy Phone Service from Cable Provider
Posted on: Friday, 12 December 2003, 06:00 CST
Dec. 10--KETTERING, Ohio--Beginning about April 1, cable television customers in parts of the Miami Valley can buy home telephone service from Time Warner.
The new service, in competition with telephone hookups from SBC Communications, AT&T and others, will use Time Warner cable TV lines to carry local and long-distance telephone calls.
Time Warner this week announced agreements with MCI Inc. and Sprint Corp. to handle telephone switching for the new service in 27 states. MCI will handle switching in the Dayton area, according to Stephen J. Hammons, the newly hired vice president for telecommunications for Kettering-based Time Warner Cable in the Miami Valley.
Hammons, previously with Cricket Cellular Communication here, said plans call for Time Warner to begin telephone service in the Dayton division "by late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter of 2004 for our Road Runner (high speed Internet) customers." Cable TV-only customers will be offered the service later. He said the startup date will depend on when MCI is ready.
"We're doing an assessment of our system and MCI's. We've just now signed the contract with MCI," Hammons said. "We've got a lot to work out before deciding which specific areas within our division go first."
The Dayton division extends from Springboro to Bowling Green.
He said prices for flat rate local and long distance service have not been set but may be about $49.95 per month for homes without added Time Warner products. Residences with high speed Internet connections might pay less. He said the goal is to offer a more competitive package of services.
"One of the things that will be most compelling will be including unlimited long distance calling in the price," Hammons said.
"This is going to be residential service only," he said. "We will not be going into the business service side. We need to learn to walk before we run."
Time Warner crews will handle telephone problems outside the home. Hammons said he will be hiring about a dozen people to operate the telephone business.
"We will utilize our data network to carry all of this (telephone) traffic, so we don?t have to build a big network or anything of that nature. That means we don?t need to hire an army of employees," Hammons said.
Time Warner Cable TV systems in Portland, Maine, and Raleigh, N.C., already offer telephone service.
Road Runner customers will be the easiest to plug into the new service because they have Time Warner modems that can be changed for telephone use. All existing telephone lines, connections and equipment in the house remain the same, Hammons said.
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(c) 2003, Dayton Daily News, Ohio. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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