RCN Corporation
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This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2010) |
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| Type | Private |
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| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Princeton, New Jersey, United States |
| Key people | Jim Holanda, CEO |
| Services | High Speed Internet Digital Television Digital Telephone |
| Revenue | $636 Million |
| Owner(s) | ABRY Partners |
| Employees | 1,315 [1] |
| Website | RCN.com |
RCN Corporation, founded in 1993 and based in Princeton, New Jersey, is the first American facilities-based competitive ("overbuild") provider of bundled telephone, cable television and DSL internet service delivered over its own fiber-optic local network to consumers in the Boston, New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Chicago areas. RCN was originally Residential Communications Network.
As of 2006[update], RCN claims over 424,000 domestic customers and 130 cable franchises.
RCN serves in and/or around the following locations: Allentown, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Washington, D.C.; New York City, New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [2]
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History [edit]
RCN (Residential Communications Network) was originally created in 1993 by developer David McCourt and Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc., the Omaha construction giant. Kiewit also owned MFS, a pioneering Competitive Access Provider (CAP). In a series of moves, RCN purchased C-TEC, the parent of Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Telephone (Commonwealth was spun out several years later), while MFS spun off its small residential telephone operations to RCN. MFS was later purchased by Worldcom. RCN/C-TEC became a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) when the Telecom Act of 1996 passed.
RCN then began its growth as a cable TV overbuilder, constructing competitor cable systems in markets that already had cable service. Most of its systems were partnerships with power companies, which provided rights-of-way on poles. RCN featured "triple play" television/internet/telephone service, though for some time its voice operations were largely resold incumbent telephone company lines. It purchased existing US East-Coast ISPs Erol's Internet, UltraNet Communications, Interport and JavaNet. On the West Coast, it purchased existing ISPs DNAI and Brainstorm. In Chicago, it bought into the market by acquiring overbuilder 21st Century Telecom. The name "RCN" originally stood for "Residential Communications Network" though the parent entity was RCN Corp.
In early February 2009, RCN converted to an all-digital network. With the transition, the company is able to use the entire spectrum for digital and high-definition television broadcasting, reducing the need to compress signals, and offering more channels with higher-quality video service.
ABRY Partners, a private equity firm, acquired local Internet and cable-service provider RCN Corporation for $1.2 billion in 2010. [3] [4]
RCN4/RCN8 [edit]
RCN4 and RCN8 broadcast local sports. RCN4 is in the Lehigh Valley and RCN8 is in the Delaware Valley. Programming includes Lafaytte sports, Delaware Valley Outdoors, Blue Mountain League Baseball, coverage of the Allentown Fair, Disc Golf Monthly, The Jolly Joe Timmer Show, Polkafest, District XI Wrestling, High School Football, including coverage of Easton Red Rovers games, broadcast from the gym of Easton Area Middle School 7/8. In addition, RCN4 runs the Lafayette sports network, broadcasting home and away games of their football, basketball, and baseball games and along with RCN8 also broadcasts classic sitcoms similar to TV Land, such as The Lucy Show, Mr. and Mrs. North, The Phil Stahl Show, and several others including two daily Spanish-language shows. When the channels are not broadcasting this type pf programming, they broadcast Valley Connection, which is similar to a cable company electronic community bulletin board.
Acquisitions and selloffs [edit]
On January 21, 1998, RCN paid $110.5M for UltraNet in Massachusetts and Erol's in Virginia, as reported by The Boston Globe on January 22, 1998.
On June 16, 1998, RCN paid $11 million in stock and $871,000 in cash for Interport Communications, Inc.
On July 27, 1998 RCN paid $13.4 million in stock and $2.4 million in cash for Javanet, Inc.
On March 20, 2006 RCN bought[5][dead link] Consolidated Edison Communications Holding Co., a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison for $32 million and $7 million in working capital.
On August 18, 2006, RCN announced it was selling its San Francisco operations, representing 18,000 subscribers, to Astound Broadband for $45 million.[6]
On September 13, 2006, Bloomberg News, citing two anonymous sources, reported that RCN hired the Blackstone Group to examine the possibility of putting the company up for sale.[7]
References [edit]
- ^ http://www.rcn.com/images/pdfs/careers/2011-eeo.pdf
- ^ http://www.rcn.com/about-rcn/where-we-service
- ^ http://www.abry.com/home/news/10-08-26/ABRY_Partners_Completes_Acquisition_of_RCN_Corporation.aspx
- ^ Musgrove, Mike (March 6, 2010). "Va. broadband provider RCN accepts Boston equity firm's acquisition offer". The Washington Post.
- ^ Online Stock Trading Investing Day Trading
- ^ "Agrees to Sell San Francisco Assets for $45 Million" (Press release). RCN. 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2010-04-06.
- ^ "RCN Might Seek Buyer". TheStreet. 2006-09-13. Retrieved 2010-04-06.
External links [edit]
- Official website
- RCN Community Portal
- RCN Forum at Broadband Reports
- THE WALL STREET TRANSCRIPT CEO Interview: PETER AQUINO published 02/13/2006
