Breezeline to debut mobile in Connecticut, use hard and soft SIMs

Frank van der Post is ready for Breezeline to open its service convergence playbook and bring forth an approach that he's had success with in Europe.

Van der Post, now president of Breezeline, says he saw those convergence benefits take hold at KPN in the Netherlands. He was KPN's chief commercial officer before joining Breezeline in 2019.

He'll soon have an opportunity to see if that strategy will pay off in the US as Breezeline prepares to launch a mobile offering this spring via the National Content & Technology Cooperative's agreements with AT&T and Reach.

"From my background at KPN in the Netherlands, I know how important converged, bundled products are," he said in an interview. "It's always been our desire to make it happen" at Breezeline.

He said Breezeline embarked on its mobile journey about a year ago amid research showing that there's demand from Breezeline's customers for a bundle that ties together home wired broadband with mobile. Similar to the approach being taken by peers such as Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, Breezeline will sell mobile only to customers who take its home broadband service.

Breezeline, the nation's eighth-largest cable operator, is also one of the NCTC's largest members. Breezeline ended its fiscal first quarter (ended November 30, 2023) with 1.75 million serviceable passings and 663,000 high-speed Internet customers. Formerly known as Atlantic Broadband, the company was rebranded as Breezeline in 2022 following its acquisition of WideOpenWest's systems in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Breezeline is a subsidiary of Canada's Cogeco Communications.

Patience over haste

Breezeline will initially launch Breezeline Mobile in Connecticut in "early April," van der Post said.

Breezeline will use that initial launch to flush out any issues and ensure that everything is humming along perfectly before expanding mobile to areas served in 12 additional states (Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia). AT&T's mobile network provided the best coverage for Breezeline's largely rural footprint, van der Post said.

"We've done tons of testing. But you don't know what you don't know," he said. "If everything goes well, we can very quickly roll out the rest of the footprint ... To me what is more important is that you launch it well, rather than launch it fast."

The initial debut in Connecticut will give Breezeline a "good view of how our markets are going to react across the footprint," van der Post said.

Breezeline Mobile's "buy flow" is integrated with Reach's cloud-based platform. Customers will buy the service with a credit card and will be billed for mobile separately. Van der Post said the two-bill approach was a non-issue for customers at KPN and expects the same in the US.

He promises that pricing will be "very attractive" and that Breezeline customers will see an overall discount as mobile is combined with home broadband service. Breezeline isn't releasing pricing and packaging until closer to the launch, but it will offer four contract-free by-the-gig and unlimited plans.

Breezeline will provide in-house support for the new offering, and training is underway.

"What is very important to us is that our customers talk to our customer service agents," van der Post said. Improvements made at Breezeline's customer support organization over the last 18 months have resulted in 90% of customer calls being answered within 90 seconds, he said.

Breezeline will initially sell mobile service online, but might later look to sell it at its physical store locations.

Hard and soft SIMs

And the company will support a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) model out of the chute to help make the buy flow easy in the early going.

Under that BYOD model (and in a nod to the proliferation of smartphones with dual-SIM capabilities), Breezeline will activate mobile customers by issuing them hardware SIMs or sending them links to soft SIMs.

The company plans to integrate such elements with its My Breezeline app, which manages customer accounts, enables customers to view and pay bills online and helps with equipment troubleshooting.

Van der Post allowed that Breezeline may reevaluate when or if to sell mobile devices directly as well.

TVS Cable, the first NCTC member to launch mobile via the co-op's mobile agreements, supports BYOD as well as an online device store.