Time Warner Cable has started notifying its subscribers in Dallas and surrounding areas that its TWC Maxx project, which includes the conversion to all-digital, will soon be underway.
By early summer of this year, those Dallas area subscribers will be able to tap into speeds of up to 300 Mbps down with the reclaimed bandwidth from the analog-to-digital conversion.
Dallas, along with Charlotte, Hawaii, Kansas City, Raleigh, San Antonio and San Diego, was one of the seven areas that Time Warner Cable said last year was targeted for the TWC Maxx upgrade.
After upgrading networks in Los Angeles, New York City and Austin last year via TWC Maxx initiatives, Time Warner Cable announced last month that the first phase of TWC Maxx was underway in Kansas City, where it competes against Google Fiber in some areas.
Time Warner Cable wrapped up TWC Maxx in New York and Los Angeles last year, and is close to be being done in Austin. Time Warner Cable goes up against 1-gigabit services in Austin that are offered in some areas by AT&T and Grande Communications.
TWC Maxx, which was first outlined by CEO Rob Marcus a year ago, uses the reclaimed bandwidth to offer its subscribers a 300 Mbps down/20 Mbps up tier, more VOD choices and an improved whole-home DVR offering.
TWC Maxx will be available to all customers in the following areas of the Dallas Metroplex: Addison, Allen, Arlington, Bedford, Carrollton, Cedar Hill, Cockrell Hill, Colleyville, Commerce, Coppell, Dallas, DeSoto, Double Oak, Euless, Farmers Branch, Farmersville, Flower Mound, Frisco, Garland, Grand Prairie, Grapevine, Greenville, Highland Village, Hutchins, Irving, Kennedale, Lancaster, Lewisville, McKinney, Mesquite, Murphy, Pantego, Plano, Princeton, Richardson, Rockwall, Rowlett, Sachse, St. Paul, Sunnyvale, The Colony and Wylie.
Along with TWC Maxx, Time Warner Cable will also install its Wi-Fi hotspots in the Dallas area this year. The TWC WiFi Hotspots have already started deploying in small business locations where customers frequent including restaurants, cafes, hair salons and doctor’s offices. Outdoor locations will begin deployment towards the end of the first quarter.
“With ‘TWC Maxx,’ we’re essentially reinventing the TWC experience,” said Ike Wells, Time Warner Cable’s regional vice president of operations for Texas. “We will boost Internet speeds for customers up to six times faster, add to Dallas’ robust TWC WiFi, dramatically improve the TV product and set a high bar in our industry for differentiated, exceptional customer service.”
During Time Warner Cable’s fourth quarter earnings call last month, Marcus said that while it was still “early days,” TWC Maxx markets with the new modems its deploying were seeing churn rates that were materially lower than subscribers in non-TWC Maxx markets.
While the $45 billion deal with Comcast hangs in the balance, Marcus said during the fourth quarter earnings call that the company still planned on having TWC Maxx in 75 percent of its footprint by 2016.
On the whole-home networking TWC Maxx front, Time Warner Cable announced in November that it had upgraded its DVR platform in the Los Angeles and New York City markets with a new six-tuner gateway from Arris.
Arris’ DCX3600 gateway features a 1-terabyte hard drive, which includes up to six times more storage capacity than current Time Warner Cable DVRs. Time Warner Cable announced the new gateway under the moniker of “Enhanced DVR,” in reference to the improved DVR features and capacity.
As Time Warner Cable rolls TWC Maxx out in phases across the target cities, it has been reviewing and upgrading all of the hubs that enable its triple play services.
In order to view the all-digital lineups, some customers will need digital terminal adapters (DTAs), which Time Warner Cable will offer to current subscribers for free through April 21 of next year if they sign up by Aug. 19 of this year. After the free trial period ends, customers that continue to use the DTAs will incur a monthly charge.
