Hawaiian consumers who believe that cable TV and Time Warner Oceanic are synonyms will get a new way of looking at their TV entertainment options. The Hawaii state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has issued a 15-year cable franchise for Hawaiian Telcom to offer video service over its phone lines.
Oceanic has offered cable television for more than 35 years and added Internet service in 1997 and phone in 2005. Hawaiian Telcom started offering Internet in 1998 and first tried to get into cable TV in 2006 but went into bankruptcy instead. Re-emergence from the red list allowed it to come back with a proposal to offer a bundle of up to four services--voice, video, data and mobile wireless--topping Oceanic which does not offer mobile.
"Competition makes us all better," said Bob Barlow, Oceanic's division president. "This is not my first rodeo. We've been very successful against them and we want to stay very competitive."
For more:
- the Honolulu Star-Advertiser has this story
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