Completing its purchase of a mid-sized Midwestern CLEC, Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) won conditional approval from the FCC for its acquisition of Chicago-based Cimco Communications.
Announced in October, the deal gives the nation’s No. 1 cable provider a strong presence in the Upper Midwest, as well as entry into the mid-sized business market. Comcast began a few years ago to provide high-speed Internet and voice-services companies with 20 or fewer employees; Cimco serves larger firms, with up to 250 employees.
Comcast is the first of the major cablecos to move strongly into the small and medium-sized business sector. In February the company said it will acquire Golden, Colo.-based New Global Telecom, which provides VoIP services to carriers and competitive service providers in the U.S. NGT has recently announced a series of private-label deals, under which it supplies branded VoIP services to operators like American Broadband Inc.
Comcast, which has about 24 million cable subscribers, has made a strong push into both telecom and online video services in the last year, attempting to become the leading provider of quad- and triple-play bundles into American homes and businesses. In late 2009, Comcast became the first major cableco to launch its nationwide broadband on-demand offering over the Internet. Known as “Fancast Xfinity TV,” the new service is available to customers who subscribe to both Comcast’s broadband Internet service and its cable TV service.
The company has also agreed to acquire NBC Universal, in a $30 billion deal that is undergoing intense scrutiny from federal regulators.
The FCC approval allows Comcast to take over all of Cimco's operations except for some customers in the Detroit area, Cable Digital News reported. Cable operators are prohibited by federal regulations from acquiring more than a 10 percent stake in a local exchange carrier providing telephone service in the cableco's service area.
