Residential services remain at the heart of the cable industry, but let’s not forget that business represents a significant growth opportunity as customers demand enterprise-class local service and support to meet their specific needs.

As Jim Barthold reported in Communications Technology last week (http://www.cable360.net/ct/news/ctreports/27960.html), the people at Cox are, indeed, Taking Care of Business.

This month, three premiere events took place in the Phoenix area: the Super Bowl, the FBR Open (the largest PGA tournament each season with more than 530,000 fans) and the Barrett Jackson Collector Car Event (280,000 attendees, including Jay Leno, Muhammad Ali, Patrick Dempsey and other celebrities, 1163 vehicles, $88 million in cars sales). The massive voice, video and data infrastructure and services engineered to support these events were provided by Cox Business, not the local telco.

Vertical Systems Group recently announced that Cox Business continues to lead the country as the fourth largest provider of Ethernet services, the high-speed data networking connection of choice for businesses. This puts Cox Business, with 10 percent market share, ahead of all cable providers and several other telcos.

Many of the discussions that we have in the cable industry involve the residential market, and rightly so, given cable’s history of delivering home entertainment services across the U.S. However, it is important to recognize that cable providers deliver competitive voice, data and video services to businesses of all sizes as well. Many of these businesses seek solutions from cable as an alternative to the telcos and quickly realize that residential is not the only place where Cox is a trusted provider.

Fellow un-scripted cable programming fans... it’s time! It’s time to let the world know that you did, in fact, stay up until 1 AM watching MTV’s Run’s House marathon last Tuesday. It’s time to admit you always think the well-meaning couple should have gone with house number one in HGTV’s House Hunters. It’s time to stand up and say “Yes, I’m addicted to E!’s The Girls Next Door!”

But why the sudden emphasis on the shows we’ve been watching on cable programming? With production halted on many broadcast primetime-favorites due to contract disagreements between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), television viewers are looking beyond the “Big 3” broadcast networks for entertaining programming options.

For over a decade, Cox has been delivering more than just cable TV services. A report from Vertical Systems Group demonstrates how much things have changed in that decade. The network market research firm reports that, via Cox Business, Cox is the first major cable company to reach the top tier of U.S. business Ethernet providers (notably, AT&T lost ground in this segment). Here is a Telephony article about the highly competitive Ethernet marketplace.

In covering Cox Communications’ announcement of a great third quarter for commercial sales, CableFAX Daily inserted an editorial comment referencing a certain statement last week from Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg.

Cox Business Services announced a 28% increase in 3Q commercial subs, due largely to greater availability of telephone service to business customers (Can you hear me now Verizon?). The MSO said 55% of new data customers in its legacy voice markets also subscribe to its VoIP service.

From CableFAX Daily’s coverage of Verizon’s earnings announcement yesterday:

“Also notable was (chairman/CEO Ivan) Seidenberg’s take on cable targeting small businesses. While the industry has made a lot of noise in this area, ‘I would say outside the Cablevision territory, I don’t think it is something that we are seeing a lot of at the moment.’”

It was nice to see recognition of the great strides Cable has made in the business services market, in a Reuters article this week:

After winning over many consumers by packaging phone, Internet and TV services into attractive bundles, cable is planning to attack the estimated $100 billion corporate market....Telecommunications analysts said companies like Verizon and AT&T Inc. have become complacent in serving small and medium businesses because they have not faced the same competitive or regulatory pressures as in residential markets.