Cablevision Systems' consumer voice-over-cable service, Optimum Voice, has surpassed the one million-customer milestone. The VoIP service has already attracted one-third of Cablevision's cable television customers and more than half of the company's high-speed Internet customers.
Cablevision said that since the launch of the service, Optimum Voice customers have paid an estimated $500 million less than they would have been charged by traditional phone companies for a similar level of service.
"Optimum Voice brought competition to a market that had historically been dominated by high-priced monopoly phone companies, and offered consumers a reliable flat-rate voice product that included all the popular calling features with no additional charges or hidden fees," said Tom Rutledge, Cablevision's chief operating officer.
Cablevision also credited Optimum Voice for having a profound impact on the growth of all of its digital services and the company's overall success, particularly as a driver of the company's innovative Optimum Triple Play marketing offer. Since the launch of Optimum Voice, all of the company's digital services have extended their penetration rates and Cablevision has added three million revenue-generating units (RGUs).
Optimum Voice is available exclusively to Optimum Online high-speed Internet customers. Nearly 98 percent of Optimum Voice customers are three- product customers who also take Cablevision's video service.
Optimum Voice provides unlimited local and long distance calling to the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico as well as a full array of advanced features for a flat monthly fee of $34.95.
http://www.cablevision.com
- Cablevision Systems, which serves some 3 million households in the New York metropolitan area, added more than 130,000 VoIP customers for Q4 2005 and 458,653 for all of 2005.
- In 2003, Cablevision deployed Siemens' SURPASS platform to launch its new "Optimum Voice" IP telephony service.
