Northland Cable makes speedy connections

by Matthew Weaver<br>Herald Staff Writer
| April 9, 2004 9:00 PM

Company brings high-speed Internet to ML, Othello

Photo: Northland Cable Television marketing manager Nathan Clark and regional general manager Alan Price say that their company is working to bring high-speed Internet access to the Moses Lake and Othello areas.

More and more people are getting connected everyday.

Northland Cable Television is bridging the gap for customers that don't have high-speed Internet access in the Moses Lake area, and is anticipating reaching customers in Othello soon.

Marketing manager Nathan Clark said that the company decided to get into providing Internet in January 2003.

"With the fiber optics, we saw a chance for us to move into Internet," Clark said. "That was a pretty good fit, the cable and Internet. A lot of systems do it. So we started with fiber optics and dial-up. That went over well, and so by June of last year, we launched our own cable Internet."

Cable Internet is a high-speed Internet similar to fiber optics that is always on-line, Clark said.

"It's a clean connection, no phone line required," he said. "We launched that just on the peninsula area as a test market. We had a great response. It grew better than we could have ever expected."

In the wake of such a good reaction, the company decided to take the Internet to other areas in January, including south of the interstate on the peninsula and the Hayden campus off of Nelson Road, Clark said.

"That went over even better," he said.

"We initially had an 18-month plan to roll out two-way high-speed in Moses Lake in the unserved areas," said Alan Price, Northland Cable regional general manager. "That was accelerated from 18 months to about four. It's a good success rate when you can accelerate a project by 14 months. It shows that it's a good market for it, that there's a need and awareness is high."

Clark said the company launched high-speed Internet in about 2,000 homes in the Knolls Vista area in the last two months.

"We've become really aggressive, and within the next month or two, almost every area in Moses Lake that's not served by fiber optics will have a high-speed option," Clark said.

"Every place that's served by cable," Price clarified. "In fact, Moses Lake has gone so well that we're in the process of rolling out the same service in Othello, and in the next 60 days we'll have high-speed service to every place in Othello that's served by cable as well."

Northland isn't new to the high-speed Internet game, Price said, because it operates in nine different states and had launched in other areas because of competition from other Internet providers.

"We moved into this market a little more slowly, but that's good because equipment costs and quality of service had improved dramatically by the time we entered the market," Price said. "Which means we can provide a better quality product at a better price range."

Clark said that the company constantly runs up against the misconception that high-speed Internet is expensive.

Price said the prices of their products are priced competitively, fairly and in a way that Northland Cable can remain in business.

"We want to be here to serve the people tomorrow as well, and we're able to do that," he said. "Compared to the national average for high-speed Internet via other telecom providers, we're actually several dollars below the national average for this type of product. Which is a good place to be."

More information can be accessed at http://www.northlandcabletv.com/moseslake/.