Mediacom, which bills itself as the nation’s fifth-largest cable operator, reported increases in revenues and growth in its subscriber base for internet services. However, the operator lost 8,000 video customers during the quarter, which was actually an improvement over the 17,000 video customers it lost during the same quarter a year ago.
Indeed, Mediacom reported an acceleration in the growth of its “high speed data” customer acquisitions – the operator said it added 17,000 HSD customers in the recent quarter, up from 16,000 in the same quarter a year ago.
Overall, Mediacom said it grew its “primary service units” to 2.4 million during the quarter, a figure that comprises around 1.1 million internet customers and 834,000 video customers. Mediacom also counted 467,000 phone customers.
Financially, Mediacom reported a 5.2 percent increase in revenues to $454.2 million during the quarter.
In reporting its second quarter results in August, Mediacom said it added 14,000 broadband customers and that it grew its HSD user base by 7.3 percent over the last 12 months.
Mediacom is not a publicly traded company, but reports earnings to its bond issuers.
Mediacom serves over 1.3 million customers in smaller markets, primarily in the Midwest and Southeast, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Mediacom Broadband LLC and Mediacom LLC.
Interestingly, Mediacom continues to make progress on its work to roll out public Wi-Fi networks in select cities in Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Georgia and elsewhere.
For example, according to a recent article in the Pacer in Savage City, Minnesota, the city council there recently evaluated a plan by Mediacom to build 11 Wi-Fi “pedestals” in several city parks. The publication noted the city council is expected to vote on the agreement sometime later.
Mediacom's public Wi-Fi effort stems from the company's announcement earlier this year that it would invest $1 billion over the next three years to upgrade and expand its network. The main element of that project is the company's "Project Gigabit" initiative, which the company described as a "wide-scale deployment of 1 gigabit per second broadband services to virtually all of the 3 million homes and businesses within the 1,500 communities located in Mediacom's 22 state footprint."
Mediacom isn’t the only cable operator to build out public Wi-Fi networks and speed up its internet services. Comcast, Charter and other major operators are embarking on similar efforts.