Telcos beware: Your coveted business revenue base is facing a new threat and its name is cable. Cable operators continue to overcome their video-only, consumer-centric image and are happy to take SMB customers away from you, reveals an ATLANTIC-ACM report titled Wireless Wins, Wireline Wanes: U.S. Telecom Wired and Wireless Sizing and Share 2010-2015.
Dr. Judy Reed Smith, CEO of ATLANTIC-ACM said that cable has "established a foothold in the small business segment, are beginning to address the needs of medium-sized business and, in some cases, large businesses as well." ATLANTIC-ACM estimates that the cable industry will see business service revenues grow at a 5.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2009 through 2015.
Initially, the majority of revenue will come from business cable modem services, which will grow at a projected CAGR of 10.1 during this period. But as cable operators gain the trust of medium- and large-sized businesses, the service mix will also include a mix of IP Access, IP VPN and Transport (local and long haul) products.
Evidence of these trends continues to be driven by the largest cable operators. Two cable operators that have made a strong foothold in the business segment are Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) through its Optimum Lightpath subsidiary and Cox Business with a strong fiber-to-the-enterprise presence in the regions they serve. Cox Business, for one, declared late last year that the healthcare vertical segment and wireless backhaul would enable it to reach $2 billion in revenue over the next six years.
But the cable MSO whose business star is on the rise is Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA). A recent report in FierceCable revealed that Comcast was going "build fiber links to buildings within city and suburban sites via point-to-point Ethernet." Earlier, the Philadelphia-based MSO also bought out the assets of Cimco, a competitive provider focused on serving the medium-sized business market.
