Mediacom Posts Strong Data, Digital Gains

Seemingly spending heavily on promotions, Mediacom Communications racked up its best quarterly subscriber gains in two years during the first quarter. Mediacom broke its own corporate records on both the high-speed data and digital cable fronts, netting 40,000 and 34,000 customers, respectively. The MSO also picked up 3,000 basic cable subscribers in the first quarter, its first quarterly gain since early 2003. Despite the customer gains, Mediacom reported flat revenue and a 5% drop in cash flow for the period. The disappointing financial results prompted Wall Street analysts to conclude that the MSO spent heartily on promotions to boost its customer totals. In other news, Mediacom said it will boost the top download speed for its standard cable-modem service to 5 Megabits per second (Mbps) from 3 Mbps by August. At the same time, the MSO said it plans to introduce a premier data service with maximum speeds of 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream.