Project Imagine Drives Suddenlink Growth

Suddenlink announced earlier this month that it will acquire Northland Communications' cable systems in Gun Barrel City, Flint and New Caney, Texas. But the company has been no stranger to the news of late. Over the past several months, the MSO has been busy with high-speed Internet upgrades as well the transition to digital video across its markets.The reason for this good news is primarily the 2012 culmination of Project Imagine - a three-year, $350 million capital investment program. The specific result from this expenditure has been the expansion of DOCSIS 3.0 technology from 12% of Suddenlink's customer base to 93% and the wider availability of 30 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and even 107 Mbps Internet services within the company's footprint, said Gene Regan, Suddenlink's director of corporate communications."During the course of Project Imagine, we expanded the number of customers with Internet speeds of 15 Mbps or higher by 36 times," Regan said. "In November last year, we reached a new milestone by signing our 1 millionth residential high-speed Internet customer. Usage also continues to grow year after year, indicating to us that our customers are enjoying their fast Internet connections."While 76% of Suddenlink's customers have speeds of 15 Mbps or higher, only 9.3% of residential users subscribe to 30 Mbps or higher, leaving plenty of room for growth, Regan said. "We've been pursuing this opportunity by creating more awareness at the time of sale of our 30-meg and greater service offerings. As a result, we have substantially increased our sell-in rate to new customers for 30-meg plus services from less than 1% in the second quarter of 2012 to nearly 23% in the most recent second quarter."As for the video side, during Project Imagine, Suddenlink grew digital video customers 46% and HD customers 116%. Looking at the second quarter of 2013, the HD penetration of digital customers reached 73.6%, a 19.3% year-over-year growth; and the sell-in rate of HD for new digital customers hit 88%.The transition to digital was challenging from a variety of perspectives, including customer awareness. During Project Imagine, Suddenlink conducted 400 customer "events" and sent 3.5 million customer communications to make sure subscribers were ready for the all-digital lineup. "We also rolled trucks to many homes in support of our customers' transition to all digital," Regan said.Monta Monaco Hernon is a free-lance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].