At Least One Other Greenfield Expansion on Deck: WOW CFO
Following sale last year of five of its 19 markets (see 2111010005) and using proceeds to pay down debt, WideOpenWest now is focused on growth and expanding its footprint, Chief Financial Officer John Rego said in a Raymond James investor…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
conference Monday. He said it “would be really difficult” to sell more markets. He said beyond the previously announced expansions into Seminole and Orange counties in Florida (see 2202240012), WOW will announce this year at least one other "greenfield" expansion into an area where it doesn't currently operate. He said WOW's growth focus is on such greenfield overbuilding, as well as edge-outs of its network into adjacent territory and more commercial enterprise services. WOW used to spend $30 million to $40 million a year on edging out, but that nosedived to $5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. Most new residential connections are taking 500 Mbps or higher, he said. Numerous customers moved to higher speed tiers during the pandemic, and it isn't anticipated many will level back down as they start returning to the office, he said. WOW's partnership with Reach Mobile on offering WOW-branded mobile service (see 2202220045) is a way of giving WOW a new product bundle for reducing churn as well as a means of testing mobile "to see if it's something we want to go deeper into," Rego said.