Wide Open West

Wide Open West

Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: WOW
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Denver, Colorado
Key people	Steven Cochran, Chief Executive Officer and President
Products	Cable television, broadband Internet, landline telephone
Website	www.wowway.com

Wide Open West (doing business as WOW!^[1]) is the sixth largest cable operator in the United States.^[2] The company offers landline telephone, Cable Television, and broadband Internet services.^[3] As of March 31, 2017, WOW! has about 781,000 subscribers.^[4]

After a 2017 initial public offering, Wide Open West is publicly traded with Avista Capital Partners and Crestview Partners retaining significant stakes.^[5]

History

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave way for more competition to enter the cable TV market. Encouraged by this law a number of investors, led by local telephone companies, established competitive broadcast cable services in markets across the country. These entities became known in the industry as 'cable overbuilders,' meaning they would build new cable infrastructure into areas where there were existing cable systems.^[6]

WOW! was founded in November 1999 in Denver, Colorado. After building a network in April 2001, WOW! initially served about 200 people in the Denver area. In November 2001, WOW! purchased Americast, an overbuild system in the Midwest built and operated by Ameritech New Media for an undisclosed amount per subscriber, estimated to have been at a cost of $600 per sub. This purchase opened WOW! to over 310,000 new customers in metropolitan areas surrounding the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Denver, and Evansville.^[7] WOW! no longer serves the Denver market.

In August 23, 2011, Wave Broadband and WOW! announced that they entered into an agreement to purchase substantially all of the assets of Broadstripe LLC, a provider of residential and commercial bundled communications services. On January 14, WOW! completed the acquisition of Broadstripe's cable systems in Michigan.

In April 2012, WOW! purchased Knology, a broadband company, operating in 13 markets. With the merger the combined customer total will be over 800,000.^[8]

In June 2014, WOW! sold its cable, Internet and phone systems in the South Dakota markets to Clarity Telecom. Part of the multimillion-dollar deal, worth $262 million, included the markets in Iowa and Minnesota previously served by Knology and PrairieWave Communications.^[9] In March 2015 these markets would officially become known as Vast Broadband.^[10]

In September 2016, WOW! purchased NuLink, a cable company serving Newnan, Georgia with approximately 34,000 customers at the time the deal closed.^[11]

In October 2016, WOW! came to an agreement with Midco to sell its systems in Lawrence, Kansas. These systems currently pass approximately 67,000 homes and businesses in the area.^[12]

On June 28, 2017, WOW! officially no longer serves the Lawrence, Kansas area.^[13]

Internet availability by state

Internet service

This is WOW!'s internet plans as of July 7, 2017^[15].

TV service

WOW! offers three different cable packages under their new simplified plans, Small Cable, Medium Cable, and Large Cable. In addition they offer a whole home DVR/internet modem combo they call Ultra, which uses the Arris MG5125G or Arris DCX3635 along with the ARRIS MP2000 Media Player as their whole home solution. The Ultra product combines the DVR, Internet modem, and phone modem all into one box.

This is WOW!'s TV lineup as of July 17, 2017^[18].

Old Logos

WOW!'s logo in use before current logo (before April 4th 2017)

WOW!'s 2nd logo

WOW!'s original logo

See also

• NebuAd

References

External links

• Official website