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Suddenlink Communications
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Suddenlink Communications, Inc. | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | 2003 (as Cebridge Connections) 2006 (as Suddenlink) |
| Headquarters | St. Louis, MO |
| Key people | Jerald L. Kent (Chief Executive Officer) |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Products | Digital Cable Video On Demand High-Definition TV High-Speed Internet Digital Phone Telecommunications Suddenlink Media Cable Advertising Network West Virginia Local WV station Security |
| Revenue |  $1.2 Billion USD (2006) |
| Parent | Cequel Communications, LLC. |
| Slogan | Life Connected |
| Website | suddenlink.com |
Suddenlink Communications, formerly Cebridge Connections[1], is a top-10 cable broadband provider in the United States with approximately 1.3 million subscribers. Suddenlink operates in more than 20 states in primarily medium-sized communities. Its corporate headquarters are located in St. Louis, MO and is part of Cequel Communications, LLC. Cequel III, the forerunner to Cequel Communications, was founded in January 2002 by Jerry Kent, Howard Wood, and Dan Bergstein as an investment and management firm that focuses on development of cable and telecommunications companies.
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Suddenlink traces its origins to February 2003, when its senior management team assumed responsibility for the assets of Classic Communications, which served remote suburban areas, smaller towns, and rural communities. Since 1992 Classic acquired 20 cable systems and in 2001 filed for bankruptcy and emerged from bankruptcy on January 2003. [1]Suddenlink's parent company Cequel III (now Cequel Communications) reported it would invest in Classic Communications on February 12, 2003. At the time Classic was the twelfth largest MSO with 325,000 customers in nine states (Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, and Ohio). Classic’s customers had been largely deprived of advanced services like high-speed Internet access. The new management team invested tens of millions of dollars to upgrade Classic systems and improve the quality and quantity of services they offered.
The company was re-named Cebridge Connections and continued to acquire new cable companies and new cable systems. [2] As Cebridge the company acquired cable systems previously owned by Alliance, Tele-Media, Thompson, and USA Media. In 2006 Cebridge became Suddenlink Communications after the deals to acquire cable systems from Cox Communications and Charter Communications closed. [3]
On June 21, 2006 Suddenlink began providing cable VoIP services using Nortel Technology. Suddenlink uses Nortel's VoIP solutions to provide digital telephone services to customers from California to North Carolina and includes 30,000 acquired customers from Cox.
On November 8, 2006 Suddenlink and Sprint Nextel announced a five year agreement to enable wireline VoIP solutions to residential and commercial Suddenlink subscribers. The new contract awards Sprint Nextel the right to facilitate Suddenlink's residential telephone service targeted to 2.2 million households in Suddenlink franchise areas, including approximately 30,000 existing residential voice subscribers migrating to the Sprint Nextel solution. [4]
After Suddenlink completed the purchase of cable systems from Charter Communications in West Virginia the rights to two local stations WCHS-TV and WVAH-TV expired. The parent company Sinclair Broadcast Group that owns WCHS but operates WVAH under a local marketing agreement wanted to pull the two stations on July 1, 2006 unless Suddenlink paid $40 million to Sinclair up front in retransmission fees and $1 per subscriber. An FCC rule prohibited Sinclair from pulling the two stations during the middle of Nielsen Media sweeps week. Suddenlink was allowed to carry the stations until July 26, 2006. Sinclair pulled the stations on July 1 from viewers in the Beckley, WV market. [5]
After several weeks of negotiations, the two companies reached an agreement which allowed WCHS and WVAH to continue transmission over the Suddenlink cable system and both stations were restored to the Beckley market. The terms of the agreement were not released to the public.[6]
On October 20, 2006 WVNS-TV filed for both non-duplication and syndication exclusivity protections for FOX programming in the Beckley, Princeton, Lewisburg and Hinton markets. In these areas WVAH-TV, the FOX affiliate from Charleston, is also carried on Suddenlink cable systems. Suddenlink reported the only programming that will not be available from WVAH is Fox programming. All local news and other programming will still be available to customers. [7]
Suddenlink, like many other top ten cable providers are in a dispute with the NFL Network over carriage. NFL Network wants to be carried on an expanded tier while Suddenlink and other cable companies want to put the network on a digital sports tier.
NFL Network offered a free preview from December 24 through December 30, 2006 to West Texas area cable systems ran by Suddenlink Communications[2] and to New York area cable systems ran by Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. The package included the Texas Bowl and Insight Bowl, but not that week's NFL game between the New York Giants and Washington Redskins, which was shown on WNBC for New York viewers. However the free preview did not lead to long term carriage agreements between the three cable companies or NFL Network.
In 2007 Suddenlink set up a section on their website called Play Fair. Suddenlink claims that they want to carry the network while being fair to the customers who want the network and to the customers who don't want it. The site claims that Comcast and Cox can carry NFL Network on a sports tier while Suddenlink would like to have the same option. Placing NFL Network on the sports tier allows customers who want the network to pay for it. The site further claims that NFL Network doesn't have the kind of year-long programming that justifies putting it on basic cable services.[3].
Recently Suddenlink made several offers to the NFL Network which would include giving the NFL Network a free channel which would be widely available to the customers who want it. The NFL could make that channel available for free or a set price that they wanted for it, while keeping all revenue from it, including advertising revenues. However, with this option Suddenlink would make no money carrying the network. The NFL Network denied this and other offers on November 27, 2007. Suddenlink claims that the network "reiterating that they would accept nothing less than the same $100 million ransom they demanded more than a year ago." Suddenlink states that they are ready to make a deal with the NFL Network and ask "the citizens and leaders of the communities we serve to contact the NFL and ask them to accept Suddenlink's generous offer of a free channel, widely available to customers who want it." [4]
The other offers Suddenlink proposed were to carry the network on their digital sports tier, at a reasonable fee. The second option was to make NFL Network’s eight live NFL primetime games and its college bowl game coverage available on pay-per-view at a rate determined by the network, with all revenue remitted to the channel.[5]
- February 12, 2003 Cequel III invested in Classic Communications, Inc. [8]
- June 30, 2003 Cequel III acquired cable systems from Shaw Communications, Inc. [9]
- January 26, 2004 Cequel III acquired cable systems from Alliance Communications Partners. [10]
- April 5, 2004 Cequel III acquired cable systems from Thompson Cablevision. [11]
- June 3, 2004 Cebridge acquired cable systems from Tele-Media. [12]
- August 19, 2004 Cebridge acquired cable systems from USA Media. [13]
- May 5, 2006 Suddenlink acquired cable systems from Cox Communications. [14]
- July 3, 2006 Suddenlink acquired cable systems from Charter Communications. [15]
 Cebridge Logo 2001-2006. |
Suddenlink Logo 2006-present. |
- ^ http://www.connectmycable.com/cebridge/index.html
- ^ NFL Network and Suddenlink Cable Reach Agreement Texas Tech website
- ^ Suddenlink wants to carry the NFL Network and be fair to all of our customers, both those who are football fans and those who are not. Suddenlink.
- ^ NFL NETWORK DECLINES FREE CHANNEL Suddenlink.
- ^ Suddenlink’s NFL Network Passes Fall Incomplete Multichannel.
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