Optimum Online(R) to Launch Two New Premium Tiers for Residential and Business
Customers with Downstream Speeds of 30 Mbps and 50 Mbps
Optimum Online Accelerates Downstream Speed from 10 to 15 Mbps for All
Customers at No Additional Cost
Services Delivered Through Cablevision's High Capacity Fiber Network Passing
4.5 Million Homes and Hundreds of Thousands of Businesses in the New York
Metropolitan Area
BETHPAGE, N.Y., Nov. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cablevision Systems Corp.
(NYSE: CVC) today announced that it is leveraging the enormous capacity of its
fiber network to introduce the nation's fastest and most technologically
advanced suite of Internet products for home and business. The company is
introducing two new Optimum Online premium tiers that will increase the speed
of its Internet products to up to 50 Mbps. Cablevision is also substantially
increasing the speed of its Optimum Online service to all customers, from its
current speeds of 10 megabits-per-second (Mbps) downstream and 1 Mbps upstream
to 15 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps up at no additional cost.
The launch of this new Optimum Online suite builds upon Cablevision's core
strategy of expanding the limits of the Internet and television with high-
capacity services built to host higher-bandwidth applications -- such as high
definition television and data sharing -- that are being demanded by early
adopters and also generating wide market acceptance.
"Because we have a superior network, we are able to deliver the fastest
and most advanced video, data and voice products in the market," said Tom
Rutledge, Cablevision's chief operating officer. "Our two new high-end data
services, as well as a very significant speed increase for all customers at no
additional charge, are direct results of Cablevision's investment in this
high-capacity platform."
Cablevision's high-speed Internet product suite now includes services
specifically designed for all levels of residential and commercial use. In
addition to Optimum Online, the most successful home Internet service in the
nation, Cablevision will offer Optimum Online Boost, offering speeds of up to
30 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream, and Optimum Online Ultra, offering
symmetrical data connections of up to 50 Mbps upstream and downstream.
The introduction of these new speed tiers completes the continuum between
Cablevision's cornerstone Optimum Online consumer service and the Metro
Ethernet services offered to large businesses by the company's Optimum
Lightpath division, allowing Cablevision to offer a full range of data and
Internet services that meet any possible level of need in the home or at work.
Cablevision will begin to deploy the new speeds and service levels
immediately, with the accelerated Optimum Online service and Optimum Online
Boost available across the company's entire service area by the middle of
2006. Optimum Online Ultra is already available across the company's entire
service area. Customers will be updated directly regarding availability in
their specific areas.
Optimum Online
With more than 1.5 million customers as of June 30, more than one third of
the homes passed by Cablevision's network subscribe to Optimum Online, and
more than half of all Internet-connected homes in the company's service area
access the Internet through Optimum Online.
Optimum Online is the most successful high-speed Internet service in the
nation. Over the last three years, the Optimum Online customer base has grown
nearly 150 percent, from 610,505 to 1,519,864 as of June 30, and penetration
of homes-passed has nearly doubled, from 18.8 percent to 34 percent over this
same period. Quarterly revenues associated with Cablevision's Optimum Online
service have more than tripled, from $59 million in the second quarter of 2002
to $190 million in the second quarter of this year.
As part of its new high-speed Internet product suite, Cablevision is
dramatically increasing the speed of its core Optimum Online service at no
additional cost, to up to 15 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream.
Optimum Online Boost
Optimum Online Boost is a new level of high-speed Internet service
designed to appeal to residential customers and small and medium-sized
businesses using higher-bandwidth applications.
Available for an additional $14.95 per month, $9.95 per month for
customers who also subscribe to Cablevision's VoIP voice service, Optimum
Voice, Optimum Online Boost will offer downstream speeds of up to 30 Mbps and
up to 2 Mbps upstream -- 39 times faster than the DSL service currently being
broadly marketed by phone companies.
In addition to the speed, Optimum Online Boost includes a host of new
features and benefits designed for high use residential and business
customers, including:
* Up to 15 e-mail addresses with 1 gigabyte of storage per address, or a
total of 15 gigabytes of storage, and the ability to send extremely
large e-mail attachments in excess of 20 Megabytes.
* Web hosting capabilities, allowing customers to build and maintain their
own Web sites.
* Advanced configurations that include DDNS, Port 25 and Port 80.
Optimum Online Boost will travel on its own dedicated portion of
Cablevision's completed fiber-rich network, to ensure an extremely high level
of service regardless of its penetration or the propensity of Optimum Online
Boost customers to use bandwidth-heavy applications.
Optimum Online Ultra
The third and fastest service included in Cablevision's suite of data
products is Optimum Online Ultra, which offers customers a dedicated 50 Mbps
symmetrical downstream and upstream data service.
First offered through a targeted deployment last spring, Optimum Online
Ultra delivers this extremely high rate of speed over Cablevision's existing
network facilities, leveraging the spectrum above that which is traditionally
used to provide video, voice and data services to create new, QoS-managed
bandwidth.
Optimum Online Ultra is available across Cablevision's entire service area
immediately and is the fastest residential service ubiquitously deployed in
the nation.
About Cablevision
Cablevision Systems Corporation is one of the nation's leading
entertainment and telecommunications companies. Its cable television
operations serve 3 million households in the New York metropolitan area. The
company's advanced telecommunications offerings include its iO: Interactive
Optimum digital television, Optimum Online high-speed Internet, Optimum Voice
digital voice-over-cable, and its Optimum Lightpath integrated business
communications services. Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings LLC operates
several successful programming businesses, including AMC, IFC, WE and other
national and regional networks. In addition to its telecommunications and
programming businesses, Cablevision owns Madison Square Garden and its sports
teams, the New York Knicks, Rangers and Liberty. The company also operates New
York's famed Radio City Music Hall, and owns and operates Clearview Cinemas.
SOURCE Cablevision Systems Corp.
 back to top
Related links:
http://www.cablevision.com
CONTACT:
Jim Maiella of Cablevision Systems Corp.,
+1-516-803-3947
|
