Time Warner Cable morphs into a digicom

Triple play came to Time Warner Cable's rescue in Q3 with both telephony and internet connections surging, offsetting another disappointing quarter for the video business. For the three months to September TWC added 233,000 high-speed Internet subs and 275,000 phone subs. At the same time it lost 83,000 video subs, mostly in two markets it recently acquired in Los Angeles and Dallas.

The rise in digital voice subscribers came from both existing markets (156,000) and its newly acquired operations in LA and Dallas (119,000) and gives TWC 2.6 million subscribers. With all  the major cable companies aggressively chasing voice customers it is being predicted by some analysts that nearly a quarter of wireline phone users will have signed up with their cable company by the end of 2008.

The same change is under way in the broadband market place with TWC fast internet connections up by 275,000--partly from the new subscribers acquired from the L.A. and Dallas markets.

The loss of video subscribers is partly linked to increased competition from the new IPTV services being rolled out by Verizon and AT&T, but the major market change over the last 18 months has been the huge take up of digital or internet based voice services. And while wireline voice is no longer the license to print money it once was, the convergence of the cable and telco operators into digicoms has been swift and substantial.

For More:
- TWC Cable results could Be Worse Report
- Q3 earnings press release
- Cable's picture gets fuzzier WSJ Report (sub. req.) 

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