Meet the System—Columbus, Ohio: Still Doing Tryouts in Columbus

Cable World, April 4, 2005

Time Warner Cable continues voyages to the new.

By Simon Applebaum

If you're ever wondering what cable's been doing lately to fight the competition, we suggest a visit to Time Warner Cable's Columbus, Ohio, system. Over the 34 years Time Warner has served this city and surrounding suburbs, the system has developed a reputation for being among the MSO's first to test and launch advanced products.

For instance, Qube, the locally produced interactive TV service with the funny-sounding name, sparked national headlines for the system 28 years ago, and later inspired shows such as Pinwheel and Video Pick Hits---which in turn became the inspirations for the national rollouts of Nickelodeon and MTV.

The system hasn't made many national headlines since Qube was discontinued in 1984. But locally, Time Warner Cable's penchant for service introductions endures, amid competition from DBS and overbuilders. When Time Warner decided in 1999 to have each of its systems offer high-speed Web access from multiple vendors (instead of just Road Runner), Columbus was where the process was developed and tested, and where it eventually premiered.

In the last six months alone, the system has deployed telephony using voice over IP infrastructure, and DVRs with extra capacity to handle HDTV networks.

Fighting Competition With Innovation

In the coming six months, rollouts of a local programming VOD channel, on-screen bill payment features and multi-room DVRs are on tap for the system's 325,000 customers. Those customers also can look forward to reliving the Qube days, or understanding them for the first time, as the case may be. Selected shows from the service's archives will be dusted off and carried on the local VOD channel, sharing time with recent city government and cultural events, local PBS station attractions and high school sports.

Time Warner is "a winner on many levels," says Mike Brown, communications director for Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman. "They are on the technology forefront and, as a customer, you often know you're getting the kind of high- tech services, like VOD or high-speed access, that you want in the home. People know they are getting some of the best services available in the nation. [Additionally,] the mayor has a community complaint line, known as the Action Center. Not one complaint has been phoned in about Time Warner yet."

Time Warner Columbus system president Rhonda Fraas intends to keep it that way, despite growing competition from overbuilder WideOpenWest--which services portions of the city as well as many suburbs--and DBS players DirecTV and EchoStar. Her three-pronged strategy: Keep the new products coming, improve customer service and increase community outreach.

"There's two reasons why our parent company sees us as an early home for new services," she says. "[One,] from Qube on, our customers have embraced new technologies and services. They expect innovation from our system, and when word of something new hits the market, [the customers] call us to be beta testers."

Secondly, Columbus' technical crew is highly regarded by corporate management. "They've built up a high confidence level with the corporate office, based on the excellence of executing each new service," Fraas says.

Of about 868,000 TV households in the Columbus area, 17% --151,353 households--subscribes to DBS, according to Media Business Corp.'s DataBRIDGE division. WideOpenWest doesn't release subscriber counts of individual franchises.

For Fraas, customer satisfaction starts with the confidence her 800-plus employees have in the products they're selling. "Central to that is effectively supporting your employees and training them to showcase your services," says Fraas, who started her tenure in Columbus 18 years ago as customer service manager. "There's a certain way to hook DVRs up to particular TV sets, [and if] that doesn't get communicated among customers, that leads to dissatisfaction. The mantra here is you serve people well by serving your employees well."

Time Warner's customer service reps in Columbus meet with employees from marketing, technical operations and other departments on special committees formed for each new product deployment. Having input from different sources on each committee helps spot rollout problems faster and reduces the risk of problematic installations--and frustration--among early adopters.

"Service excellence is paramount here because of our competition," says Paul Schonewolf, customer operations VP in Columbus. "If we don't provide that [high] level of service, someone else will."

First to Market, First in Service

One way Time Warner fights the competition in Columbus is by focusing local media promotions on services not available from DBS or overbuilders, such as VOD, digital phone and high-definition DVRs. Under Mark Psigoda's direction, cross-channel messages, radio and newspaper advertising tout several products at once, using elements of Time Warner's MSO-wide "Now Anything's Possible" campaign.