In order to better serve businesses, Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) has expanded its fiber-optic build out in the New York City area to the West Shore of Staten Island.
TWCBC partnered with the Staten Island Economic Development Corp. (SIEDC) to bring faster data speeds into the West Shore area, which historically was served by slower DSL lines in some areas while others had no Internet connectivity at all.
The Staten Island fiber build was the latest example of TWCBC’s plan, which was announced last summer, to spend $25 million on fiber expansions in the New York area.
Fiber networks enable businesses to be connected to a dedicated Internet network that provides speeds that can reach 10 Gbps and faster. The investment also allows businesses to have their voice, Ethernet, video, managed cloud services and other business communications services delivered over high-bandwidth fiber for increased speed and reliability.
On Staten Island, TWCBC said it invested more than $1.3 million to create a 57-mile long fiber network strategically located to serve the borough’s business community. The fiber network was in addition to the company’s HFC infrastructure that serves both residential and business customers.
“We are pleased to invest in Staten Island’s economy and are confident that our fiber build-out will help existing businesses and attract future economic development,” said Maureen Link, regional vice president of marketing and product for Time Warner Cable Business Class, East Region.
TWCBC said that that high-speed Internet would soon be available to serve area businesses. There are 35 retail and industrial business that operate along the West Shore Industrial Business Improvement District (WS-IBID), which is managed by the Staten Island Economic Development Corp.
In addition to SIEDC, Time Warner Cable Business Class worked with ACHS Management to install fiber optic infrastructure through the West Shore Shopping Plaza in order to provision services to WS-IBID.
“We are very pleased with this public, private partnership that will bring high-speed Internet to an underserved area on Staten Island,” said SIEDC CEO and President Cesar J. Claro.
Last month Time Warner Cable Business Class opened the doors on a new data center in downtown Manhattan to better serve its business customers.
In a January fourth-quarter and year-end earnings call, Time Warner Cable’s business services revenue grew 26 percent to $515 million in the fourth quarter and 29 percent to $1.9 billion last year. Time Warner Cable added more than 1,500 new employees to its business services headcount, which was a 35 percent increase, and nearly doubled the number of commercial buildings that were connected to its fiber.
Time Warner Cable Business Class was founded in 1998, and it currently serves over 550,000 business customers throughout Time Warner Cable’s footprint.
