Utilities series: A look at Cable One, Qwest and Cox

By Derek Jordan
Herald/Review

SIERRA VISTA — Cable One started providing service in Cochise County in 1994 in Bisbee. The telecommunications company now provides residents with cable and digital television as well as high-speed Internet access.

It’s only presence in Cochise County, Cable One serves 1,760 customers in Bisbee.

“Bisbee is our second smallest system,” said Melany Stroupe, director of public relations for Cable One. This area is served by only three full-time employees, Stroupe said.

Owned by The Washington Post Company, Cable One operates in several small communities throughout Arizona, including Prescott, Safford, Globe, Show Low, Winslow and Holbrook, with the state headquarters located in Phoenix.

“We tend to service small cities and large towns in non-urban areas,” Stroupe said.

In total, Cable One serves 720,000 households in 52 different locations in 19 states.

Though it has a much smaller marketshare than its larger competitors, the company believes that offering bundled services with attentive customer care will ensure it’s success and competitiveness in the market, she said.

One of the larger telecommunications companies in Cochise County is Qwest Communications.

In 2000, the fiber optics company Qwest acquired US West, one of the seven smaller telephone companies created after the antitrust breakup of AT&T in 1983.

“We were the original provider of telephone services in the state,” said Jim Campbell, Qwest president for Arizona.

Qwest services are available throughout Cochise County with the exception of Bowie, San Simon, Portal and Elfrida.

The publicly-traded company has approximately 70 employees in the county.

Currently, Qwest offers high-speed Internet and telephone service, while partnerships with Direct TV and Verizon Wireless allow for bundled offers.

“So a Qwest customer can order Qwest services and get Direct TV and Verizon services in one phone call and get those services all under one bill,” he said.

The company serves more than a dozen states in the western United States, with its main headquarters located in Denver. The state headquarters is in Phoenix.

There is a small office in Sierra Vista for Qwest technicians, Campbell said.

Like many similar-sized corporations, Qwest does not release it’s number of customers in a specific area.

As the Internet becomes a more and more common part of the daily life of millions of Americans, a new issue in providing access to it has been brought up numerous times in recent years.

“The big term you probably hear is net neutrality,” Campbell said. Basically, net neutrality argues against the creation of tiered Internet service in which customers would have to pay more for access to a greater number of Web sites or for preset bandwidth limits that restrict the amount of time a person would be able to browse the Web. In many ways, the idea is similar to the current structure of premium television channels.

“Qwest has never considered introducing bandwidth caps,” he said.

The other large telecommunications presence in southeastern Arizona is Cox Communications.

Cox entered Cochise County in 1998, when the company purchased the current cable system from TCI Cable, said Tim Cervantes, director of system operations for the county.

Cox provides high-speed Internet and cable television services to areas within Cochise County that include Benson, Huachuca City, Whetstone, Sierra Vista, Fort Huachuca, Douglas, Pirtleville, Sunsites, St. David and Willcox.

“We’re right at about 45 employees in Cochise County,” Cervantes said. The company’s main office within the county is in Sierra Vista.

Cox is the third-largest cable television provider in the country, with services in more than a dozen states. Its company headquarters is located near Atlanta.

The company was started by the Cox family, who got it’s start in the newspaper industry at the end of the 19th Century, said Cervantes.

It’s founder, James M. Cox, was an Ohio governor and member of the House of Representatives.

“He ran for president in 1920 with Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate, but they lost to Warren Harding,” he said.

The Cox family, acting through the entity Cox Enterprises, recently repurchased the remaining portions of Cox Communications.

“We’re in, I believe, our third year of being privately owned,” he said.

The company does not release subscription numbers for certain regions, but does have more than 2.5 million customers in Arizona and approximately 6.7 million nationally.

Herald/Review reporter Derek Jordan can be reached by telephone at 515-4680 or by e-mail at derek.jordan@svherald.com.

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