When it comes to business services, Cox Communications was an early pioneer, but in order to keep pace with the competition, the nation’s third-largest cable operator is working on deals to buy business services companies with annual revenue of about $200 million.

According to a story by Bloomberg, Cox could announce a deal over the six next months. Phil Meeks, senior vice president of Cox Business, told Bloomberg that Cox was targeting cloud computing and telecommunications services companies. In addition to buying business services companies, Cox is also looking at partnerships.

Cox has previously said it has targeted annual revenues of $2 billion for business services by 2016 after crossing the $1 billion threshold two years ago. According to Meeks, Cox’s business services revenues are projected to increase by 13 percent to $1.4 billion this year. Small businesses, with 19 or fewer employees, account for 65 percent of Cox Business’ revenues.

Cable operators have been successful in pulling away business from CenturyLink, Verizon and AT&T by offering Metro Ethernet services that are more flexible and robust than the telcos’ T1 lines, as well as providing cellular backhaul networks.

Earlier this week, Bright House Networks announced it had signed an agreement to buy the business of cloud communications provider Telovations for an undisclosed sum.

Last year, Time Warner Cable paid $230 million for cloud vendor NaviSite. In its third-quarter earnings report earlier this month, Time Warner Cable said its NaviSite division posted revenue growth of more than 20 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

Last month, Time Warner Cable launched its cloud-based service-as-as-software offering for small- and medium-size businesses.