Good afternoon,
It seemed a little strange, but Atlantic Broadband, the cable company that serves the Middletown area, sent out a press release touting its efforts at the newly opened Red Robin restaurant as a customer.
After all, it seemed like a minor win for the nation’s eighth-largest cable operator whose East Coast territory has a population of 1.8 million. Then again, business is a lucrative market for cable operators that are seeing sluggish growth as more consumers “cut the cord” and stream their TV programs.
Cable behemoth Comcast heavily promotes a separate division that targets large and small businesses in much of Delaware. Verizon also has a FiOS business operation that operates with a lower public profile.
In 2003, Atlantic, a part of a Canadian cable company acquired a Charter system serving Middletown and Queen Anne’s County, MD. By many accounts, the Charter system, hemmed in by Comcast, was in tough shape.
According to the release, Red Robin chose Atlantic after a previous vendor “dropped the ball.”
That supplier was not identified, but we do know that Atlantic Cable has competition in Middletown from Verizon and its FiOS fiber-optic system. Restaurants also have the option of satellite access.
Atlantic is now providing a wide range of services now required by today’s restaurants including Wi-Fi, TV as well as point of sale systems.
Craig Colby, who owns Red Robin franchises around the region, said Atlantic Broadband helped the restaurant stick with its Memorial Day opening.
Score one for Atlantic Broadband.
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