Telco moves into electricity
July 2, 2011
Cincinnati Bell in Ohio is going down the utilities road, moving into energy services with its newly-formed Cincinnati Bell Energy company.
Last month we reported on the first full merger, but if we look a bit further we can see an emerging trend, which up till now has been driven by electricity companies moving into telecoms. Sometimes that simply involves them offering access to their fibre-based networks on a wholesale basis to telcos – for example, for dark fibre services.
However, with a rapid commoditisation of the telco business there is an increase in activities that will lead to telcos moving into energy, and full mergers and acquisitions are on the rise. This is still a novelty in the market and Cincinnati Bell might well be a trend-setter here.
For this development they are partnering with Viridian Energy. The new company is offering green energy and cost savings of around 30%.
The new energy service will leverage customers’ existing utility connections from local utility Duke Energy, which will continue to maintain the connection and bill customers.
