Cox Communications said it has promoted Colleen Langner to executive VP and chief marketing and sales officer and Jeff Breaux to executive VP of Cox Business. Both will report to incoming president Mark Greatrex, who is scheduled to replace the retiring president Patrick Esser at the end of the year. 

Langner, a 2017 Multichannel News Wonder Woman, was previously senior VP of field operations for Cox, and in her new role succeeds Greatrex who held the position for a decade. Langner has more than two decades of experience leading marketing and sales teams at the regional and national levels and in her new role will be responsible for leading the company’s residential sales team and marketing activities.

Breaux has been with Cox Business for more than seven years, most recently as senior VP of sales. In his new position he will oversee Cox Business’s commercial solutions portfolio, including sales, operations, customer experience, product development and marketing for business customers, wholesale services for telecom carriers, as well as investment and acquisition of related B2B adjacent businesses.

“Colleen and Jeff have both proven themselves as extremely talented leaders who drive competitive results and motivate and inspire others around them,” Greatrex said in a statement. “With these two exemplary additions, our Cox senior leadership team is now in place. I’m ready to hit the ground running with this amazing group. I have the utmost confidence in their leadership abilities to make our plan and use our products and services to create increasingly important connections for residential and business customers.”

Cox Business said it has rolled out a managed WiFi offering to customers in Cox’s northeast markets as well as parts of the company’s southwest region.

A rollout across Cox’s national footprint will occur in the coming months, the company said.

The wider deployment comes after Cox Business started to trial a managed WiFi service for business customers in 2017.

RELATED: Comcast Gets Down to Business with WiFi 

Cox Business Managed WiFi delivers up to 1 Gbps for both private and public WiFi networks, and provides partners with the ability to select the speeds available to guests. Cox said the offering can reach up to 36,000 square feet indoors, with backhaul options up to 1 Gbps for up to 250 guests and employees.

Customers have access to a range of options, including network passcodes, splash page login screens, as well as power management and rogue access point detection.

Packages include Guest WiFi (for business customers, guests and vendors, and up to four guest network IDs with splash page passcode control), Private WiFi (for business employees and internal use, with up to four private network IDs with encrypted and private network ID passcode access control); and Total WiFi (private and guest networks, each with separate access controls).

“A smart business is a connected business,” Steve Rowley, executive vice president at Cox Business, said in a statement. “Employees and customers expect superior connectivity while working, shopping or in some situations waiting. Cox Business Managed WiFi delivers superior network management, with the security and agile functionality that businesses demand.”

Cox Business, the commercial services unit of Cox Communications, said it will offer its security product across all regions as it prepares to make it available soon in additional markets that include Cleveland, Roanoke, Santa Barbara, Palos Verdes and Sun Valley.

That offering, calledCox Business Security Solutions (CBSS), is underpinned by a 24/7 professionally-monitored UL Listed, 5-Diamond facility, Cox Business said.

CBSS uses a broadband connection with a wireless backup to help customers continually monitor the system and verify ongoing security. It also ties in a mobile alert system with cameras, enables customers to access and control the system with any connected smartphone, tablet or PC/laptop.

“We’re thrilled to expand Cox Business Security Solutions nationwide,” Steve Rowley, executive vice president, Cox Business, said in a statement. “Simply put, business owners must monitor their environments and create a ‘smart business’. With Cox Business Security Solutions, our video surveillance and detection systems help drive confidence in asset protection and provide peace of mind.”

Cox Business provides said it provides voice, data, video and security services for more than 350,000 small and regional businesses.

Cox Communications said it has finalized its purchase of Blueprint RF, a managed network solutions provider serving major hotel brands and properties across the country. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.  

Blueprint RF is an approved provider for leading U.S. hotel brands, which allows it to design, install, monitor and support wired and wireless network solutions for companies that own and operate hotel properties.

Cox Business already has a presence in the hotel industry through its Hospitality Network, which provides a full suite of hotel-specific telecommunication, in-room entertainment and managed WiFi solutions to large hotels, convention centers and arenas. The Blueprint RF addition will help enhance those offerings.

“High-quality video, internet and WiFi access are very important amenities for hotel guests during their stay,” said Cox Business executive vice president Steve Rowley in a statement. “By adding a leading company like Blueprint into the Cox family, with its expertise and industry relationships, we now have a more complete suite of technologies and services for hospitality properties of all sizes and industry segments – ensuring hotel guests stay connected to what they care about.” 

Related: AT&T Bows Chromecast-Supported Streaming Option for Hotels

Blueprint RF’s hospitality expertise, coupled with the financial and operational capabilities of Cox, will allow for broader and stronger hospitality-focused technologies, deep analytics, and an accelerated delivery that will benefit hotel owners.

“Cox and Blueprint RF share a commitment to delivering world-class customer service and industry-leading technologies,” said Blueprint RF co-founder and CEO Ron Peterson in a statement.  “By joining Cox, we’ll be better positioned to expand our existing products and service offerings to meet the industry’s managed network solutions needs today and far into the future.”

Peterson and the Blueprint RF team will join Cox and will operate as part of Cox Business’ New Business Ventures.

Showgoers at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas can expect to have access to a solid, speedy mobile connection.

The Las Vegas Convention Center has rolled out a large “neutral-host” Distributed Antenna  System in partnership with Cox Business/Hospitality and InSite Wireless Group that, they say, will be the equivalent to packing 14 cell towers inside the facility.

The new DAS, an $18 million project that took three years to plan and 10 months to build, spans the LVCC’s 3.2 million square feet of space, equal to about 26 football fields, they said, noting that it will complement the facility’s existing high-density WiFi network, which is currently comprised of 2,100 802.11ac WiFi access points.

Supported by “four major U.S. wireless carriers,” the new DAS will be capable of serving more than 100,000 people simultaneously, and expect it to deliver faster download speeds on smartphones than people would expect to get on most corporate networks

Corning was tapped as the new DAS’s core equipment provider.

Among other stats, the DAS supports 44 zones (38 indoor) and backed by five indoor, monitored DC power plants, and 41 equipment racks in the DAS headend. It’s also equipped for future 5G technology, the partners said.

In 2013, Cox Business announced it had won a seven-year deal to provide voice, data and video for the Las Vegas Convention Center and Cashman Center.

Cox Business has added a new mobile wrinkle to its hosted voice platform, IP Centrex, by enabling voice, instant messaging and other communications features on smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.

Cox Business introduced its hosted IP Centrex product in mid-2013, with an initial focus on IP phones tied to the individual business. This enhancement, enabled using the BroadSoft UC-One platform, factors in mobility, offering in-office connectivity while Cox's business customers are on the go.

The initial launch will feature several applications for smartphones, tablets and desktops – outbound calling, click-to-dial, instant messaging, and Outlook integration (Windows only). Two-way calling is initially available on the mobile smartphone app.  Cox Business also has plans to tablet and desktop apps that provide outbound calling, and the addition of collaboration features for the initial batch of apps.

Cox Business started to introduce the new mobile features last December, and it’s now available in all of the MSO’s markets, according to Jeff Adelmann, vice president of product for Cox Business.

He noted that Cox Business sells IP Centrex to its full range of customers, which include small- and mid-sized businesses, as well as some small enterprise customers. The new mobile component is a premium addition to the existing “seat.”

Cox Business, Adelmann said, also plans to extend these capabilities to its line-based products for customers that don’t require an end-to-end hosted platform.

Cox Business is adding the new mobile elements as commercial services remain a key growth engine for the cable industry. Cox is tracking toward $2 billion in annual business services revenues.

“We expanded the IP Centrex solution to enable greater productivity for our customers through a new level of connectivity. Whether via Android or iOS device, our customers will remain connected regardless of location,” Steve Rowley, senior vice president of Cox Business, said in a statement.  “In today’s competitive landscape, businesses must be equipped with advanced technology to capture new customers on demand and respond to their needs immediately - these enhancements to IP Centrex deliver on that need.”    

Ahead of next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, AT&T and Sprint have agreed to tap into a new network from Cox Business and tech partner InSite Wireless Group that will improve wireless coverage at the Las Vegas Convention Center, a venue that spans 3.2 million square feet.

AT&T, Sprint, and an unnamed third “major wireless carrier” have inked deals to launch services powered by Cox and InSite on a new, custom distributed antenna system (DAS) that will increase cellular network capability at the center. The new DAS, based on a network of low-powered, spatially-separated antennas and repeaters, will be completed by this time next year.  Cox said the convention center’s DAS will have a capacity equivalent to 14 cell sites – enough to all carriers to serve the wireless needs of capacity crowds at LVCVA’s largest events.

The center has also has bulked up the number of WiFi access points from 166 to 2,100, which are backed by redundant Cox Business 10 Gbps fiber connections.

In August 2013, Cox Business and the LVCVA signed a seven-year contract with a three-year extension to provide wired high-speed Internet networking services and equipment, wired voice services, private network options, WiFi based wireless Internet services and TV services. The DAS element from Cox and InSite was part of that contract.

“We’ve been deploying advanced technologies at the Las Vegas Convention Center for more than two years,” Derrick R. Hill, VP of Cox Business and Hospitality Network in Las Vegas, said in a statement. “Now, with the support of our partners at InSite, our neutral host DAS will help ensure wireless carriers can provide their customers faster service and improved coverage, enhancing the overall convention center experience for attendees and exhibitors.”

Cox Business/Hospitality Network also announced it was picked as the exclusive technology integration/telecommunication services provider for the new Las Vegas Arena.  The 20,000-seat venue is scheduled to open on the Las Vegas Strip in April 2016.

Cox is running a 10-Gigabit fiber optic network for the Las Vegas Arena to support wired and wireless Internet connectivity. Cox will also use Cisco’s Connected Stadium WiFi platform to operate 550 WiFi access points inside the arena.

Cox Business/Hospitality Network is also using Cisco StadiumVision to manage and target delivery of over 60 channels of high-definition news, sports and entertainment content from the Cox cable channel lineup and live in-house feeds from the arena floor to 650 digital displays throughout the arena. That video platform will be 4K-capable. 

Among the many metrics that tell the tale of healthcare’s technology transformation, one in particular stands out: 500 Megabytes.

That’s a typical size for a Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) image set — an amalgamation of X-ray, computed tomography and/or cellular pathology images used by radiologists in everyday evaluations.

The sheer size of these commonly used imaging files tells us something important about the needs of the healthcare industry as it embarks on a massive migration to electronic health records and networked data exchange: We’re going to need some very big pipes.

Thankfully, the cable industry has them. And increasingly, healthcare organizations ranging from solo practitioners to large regional providers are turning to cable to supply the connectivity that enables tremendous new capabilities in patient care.

One example is Cox’s partnership this February with Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic to create Vivre Health, a far-reaching initiative to deploy telehealth and home-healthcare solutions that connect patients and caretakers. Potential applications include video consultation via broadband and the use of in-home equipment to monitor patients’ recovery from surgery.

At the same time, Cox is looking ahead by investing in HealthSpot, a healthcare delivery platform that combines cloud-based software with health-diagnostic kiosks and mobile applications that connect to providers via advanced data networks.

These are just two indications of where the connected healthcare revolution is going, and how cable’s helping it get there. There are plenty of others. Recently, Comcast introduced its new Ethernet@Home service that allows doctors and technicians to examine medical imaging records and evaluate critical patient data from home. Cable is also making a big impact on patient experience, as health providers engage cable companies to implement in-room entertainment and Wi-Fi services that have a dramatic and positive impact on satisfaction.

Among the big technology drivers of the healthcare IT transformation are cable-powered Ethernet platforms that allow providers to deliver massive amounts of data rapidly and securely over private network pathways. Our industry is instrumental in helping healthcare organizations make a historic move away from expensive and relatively low-performance T1 circuits to fast, secure and affordable Ethernet networks that enable tremendous improvements in information exchange.  Almost every day we help another healthcare organization develop a custom solution to meet their needs in this area.

The most exciting part: We’re just getting started. There’s a huge opportunity ahead as a confluence of technology companies, healthcare providers and application developers revolutionize the way patients attain care. You can see the beginnings of this movement materialize as individuals begin to embrace personal health monitoring devices and technologies.

This evolution reflects a new paradigm: Rather than requiring patients and caretakers to come together in one regional medical center, we’re increasingly exchanging information across geographies between outpatient diagnostic centers, remote clinics, family practices, physician specialists around the globe and even patient homes. Like all businesses, technology can inject operational efficiency, improve speed and quality of care, and improves the customer experience. In this industry, it can also save lives.

Steve Rowley is senior vice president of Cox Business.

Cox Communications has signed an agreement with Sail Newport to sponsor the Volvo Ocean Race Newport Stopover next month, where it will also provide telecommunications services for the "Race Village" constructed for the event.

Newport, R.I., is the only North American stopover during the nine-month long global sailing event. Newport Sail and other Rhode Island community organizations are co-hosting the stopover, which begins May 5 and continues through May 17. The Race Village will be at Fort Adams State Park on Aquidneck Island, located in Narragansett Bay just off the Newport coast.

The sponsorship deal makes Cox the exclusive broadband provider connecting the Race Village's team compounds, sponsor pavilions, media center, broadcast compound and hospitality centers; it will also provide Internet service for live coverage of the boat arrivals, In-Port Racing and Leg Start events. Cox said it will leverage its fiber network on Aquidneck Island to provide ultra-high-speed Internet services for the Race Village.

"Cox Business will be running the technical operations side of the stopover, making sure teams, staff, organizers and the media get what they need with over a Gigabit of Internet access to go along with these high-performance boats," Ross L. Nelson, Cox Business vice president, said.

"We have worked with Cox as a technology partner on other high-profile sailing events, and they know what an international event of this magnitude needs to keep flawless Internet service running throughout the entire event," Brad Read, director of the Newport Stopover, said.

The Race Village will also be open to the public free of charge during the 12-day festival, Newport Sail said.

The Volvo Ocean Race has been in Auckland, New Zealand, and is scheduled to depart soon for a stopover in Itajai, Brazil. From there it will head north to Newport, with boats scheduled to arrive May 7-9.