Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) said the conversion to all-digital video is complete in New York City and will be finished in Los Angeles "well before" the end of the year. In the past several months, more than half a million DTAs have been deployed in LA, with the "vast majority" being self-installs.
TWC expects to reach 3 million customers with speeds of 300 Mbps by the end of the year as part of the TWC Maxx customer experience initiative. The company has decided to accelerate rollout of the program and will designate Austin, TX, a Maxx market this year, making it the third, behind NYC and L.A. Preparations are being made in Austin for the all-digital conversion, and "tens of thousands" of customers in the city already have access to the Maxx Internet speeds.
In 2015, Maxx will go to Charlotte, Dallas, Hawaii, Kansas City, Raleigh, San Antonio, and San Diego. This will bring the total number of customers reached to 6 million. "The network investments we're making to deploy Maxx are actually precursors to what it would take to roll out DOCSIS 3.1 down the road," said Robert Marcus, TWC's chairman and CEO.
TWC's cloud-based guide has been deployed to 6 million set-top boxes, which is about 40% of the total number of boxes the operator has in play. Marcus said statistics indicate that customers with the guide are using VOD more than those with the older UI. "That is consistent with our hypothesis and very encouraging."
The TWC TV App was used more than 9 million times in June, which represents a 70% increase from a year ago. Roughly a quarter of the subscribers in NYC surveyed during the second quarter said they had used the app within the last 30 days. "Customers using the app report materially higher satisfaction with TWC's video product than those who don't," Marcus said.
For its part, Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) said its X1 service is available in 100% of its footprint and has thus far decreased churn 20-30% and increased VOD usage by 25% and VOD transactions by 20%. It still hasn't been deployed to a large portion of the base yet. "We're about 50% of the triple-play packages that we sold had X1 in them, and where that's been deployed it has worked well," said Neil Smit, Comcast president and CEO of Comcast Cable.
In addition to triple-play customers, X1 has been available to Retention Q and some double-play customers. "We had inventory issues, and also we're looking at the ability to use it as a sales tool," said Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast. "The rate of installations continues, as I said earlier, continues to increase and is scaling really well." The inventory issues have since been resolved and Comcast is ramping up as quickly as possible.
Cablevision (NYSE:CVC) noted it has released a new version of its Optimum TV app, which integrates TV to GO content and serves as a single destination for customers to access Optimum content inside or outside the home. The number of simultaneous recordings possible on the multiroom DVR increased from 10 to 15. And the voice product was enhanced with the launch of HD calling in Litchfield, Conn. "I'm pleased that Optimum is the first landline telephony service to launch HD calling in the United States," said James Dolan, Cablevision president and CEO.
Rogers Communications (NYSE:RCI) said it continues to invest in its own UI and in NextBox 3.0 TV experience. "We will continue to invest in the next generation platform of IP video, and we think that will continue to move the user experience further along the lines of what you see there," said Tony Staffieri, Rogers EVP and CFO. He noted that more than 95% of Rogers' customers have access to speeds of 250 Mbps.