• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Cable, Phone Firms Expand Offerings to Attract Customers

Posted on: Sunday, 2 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

By Jon Van, Chicago Tribune

Oct. 2--No matter where he travels, Martin Zamora keeps tabs on his place in Chicago's River North neighborhood by going online to have a look around.

"I've got contractors doing some work, and I keep track of the progress using the Web," said Zamora, a subscriber to a new service called Web Watch offered by RCN Corp., the cable company that serves parts of Chicago and Skokie.

RCN's service enables customers to tap into as many as four video cameras placed around their homes through a high-speed Internet connection. Motion detectors affixed to the cameras can be set to call the customer's mobile phone or send an e-mail alert whenever someone enters the home.

Web Watch is a taste of the innovative services that cable companies and phone carriers are developing to grab an edge as competition to recruit new customers and hold onto existing ones heats up.

RCN, a small operation that emerged from bankruptcy in December, offers phone service, fast Internet connections and several digital video services. It has more offerings in mind, including an elite corps of technicians who will install and integrate home entertainment centers and local area computer networks for customers.

"These will be creative technicians with good imaginations who can help customers achieve the environment they desire," said Tom McKay, general manager of RCN Chicago.

Market research suggests that customers who buy several services from a single provider are less likely to leave that provider. McKay wants RCN to be first with new services to lure customers away from the bigger cable and phone companies.

RCN's efforts have been noticed by the Chicago area's dominant cable operator, Comcast Corp., but its real attention here is focused on SBC Communications Inc. The phone company has plans to offer video in parts of the Chicago market by next summer.

To gear up for SBC's entry into its core video market, Comcast is rolling out phone service across the Chicago region, said Joe Stackhouse, Comcast's senior vice president. It has also upgraded its video products by offering video on demand throughout this market.

"More than 60 percent of our customers have used video on demand at least once," he said. "We started with 1,000 hours of programming and are now up to 3,000."

Just as RCN has done with Web Watch, Comcast aims to "blur the lines between voice, video and data," said Stackhouse.

That's also SBC's aim when it launches video next year, said Virgil Pund, SBC general manager of the Chicago market.

SBC will deploy Internet protocol video, a digital service meant to be unlike traditional cable TV. "Essentially, all of our video will be video on demand," Pund said.

SBC is upgrading its existing copper phone network with more optical fiber to enable it to carry video, and is negotiating with Hollywood executives and others to obtain content to make available on its new service.

While dates aren't firm, Pund said the video service will be commercially available in some parts of the Chicago market by this time next year. The service rollout will continue for a couple of years so that by the end of 2008, SBC video will be available throughout the region.

SBC already offers video through the Dish Network satellite service, and in some parts of Chicago that will continue to be SBC's video offering, Pund said. But most customers should also be able to choose IP video delivered over SBC's fiber/copper network.

SBC is testing its video technology by supplying it to a handful of its employees in Texas. The other big U.S. phone carrier, Verizon Communications Inc., last month started offering video commercially to some markets in Texas.

For years people in the telecom industry have talked about the looming competition between phone and cable operators, and finally there are many signs it is starting.

A cable industry group, the Cable & Telecom Association for Marketing, has launched a national program aimed at helping consumers get their Internet, phone and video services from cable operators rather than phone companies.

The association established a hot line customers can call when moving from one place to another. The service helps the customer disconnect his current cable service and then connect him with an operator in the new location.

"We've been working on this for the past two years," said Char Beales, the association's chief executive. The hot line requires cooperation of the nation's 15 largest cable operators and serves about 90 percent of the country, she said.

SBC CEO Edward Whitacre has set a goal for his company to offer phone, Internet and video for about $100 a month. Because most consumers already subscribe to either cable or satellite TV, phone companies face an uphill battle winning those customers to a new video service.

"I expect to see a price war with the Bells," said RCN's McKay, who already offers a basic phone/Internet/video package for $99. That's why RCN hopes to sign up more customers to add-on services like Web Watch, which costs $10 a month.

Zamora, one of the first Web Watch customers, also gets phone service, Internet and video from RCN, along with a premium digital recording service.

"I'm absolutely happy with it," he said. "It's nice to get one bill that covers everything."

VIDEO OFFERINGS:

--Comcast: Cable company offers video on demand throughout the Chicago market.

--RCN: Cable company serving parts of Chicago and Skokie offers a new service called Web Watch, which enables customers to tap into as many as four video cameras placed around their homes through a high-speed Internet connection.

--SBC: Phone company plans to offer Internet protocol video in parts of the Chicago market by next summer. The digital service is essentially video on demand delivered on its phone network. SBC already offers video through the Dish Network satellite service throughout the Chicago market.

-----

To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.chicagotribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

RCNC, CMCSK, SBC, DISH, VZ,

Source: Chicago Tribune

More News in this Category