Comcast Business said it has been named the WiFi vendor of choice for NRG Stadium, the 72,000-seat home to the Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and  Super Bowl LI.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but Comcast Business is putting in a 10 Gbps Ethernet Dedicated Internet line to connect to the stadium’s local area network to the public Internet and underpin the venue’s free WiFi service. Comcast will also put in a branded Xfinity X1 “wall” inside the stadium that hosts multiple large screens that show other games, concert footage and event information.

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"We are pleased to partner with Comcast Business to provide free Wi-Fi for our fans to use on gameday at NRG Stadium" said Jamey Rootes, president of the Houston Texans, in a statement. "Fast, reliable Wi-Fi service is the foundation that will allow us to enhance the experience that our fans have on gameday through social media, live video, replays and other features available through the Texans app.”

“We are most excited to bring this great amenity to guests of NRG Stadium without using taxpayer dollars,” added said Kevin Hoffman, executive director of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation. "We were able to work with the NFL, the Super Bowl Host Committee and other stakeholders to create a unique funding partnership to get this accomplished.”

Supporting sporting and event venues has become a growing segment for Comcast Business, which generated $1.36 billion in revenues in Q2 2016, up from $1.16 billion in the year-ago period.

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The unit of Comcast also has similar deals with the Atlanta Braves’ Sun Trust Park, the Denver Broncos’ Sports Authority Field, the Detroit Tigers’ Comerica Park, the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium, the Tennessee Titans’ Nissan Field and the Oakland A's Oakland Coliseum. 

Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) said it has secured a link to the Equinix Cloud Exchange, an interconnection platform that enables businesses to select and connect to a range of public cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace.

The agreement helps TWCBC to build on its own NaviSite cloud platform. TWC acquired NaviSite in 2011 for $230 million.  Ethernet connectivity to the Equinix Cloud Exchange is delivered via TWCBC’s network. Connections to the exchange are available from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.

“TWCBC already offers secure and reliable Ethernet connectivity to our NaviSite cloud platform. With the announcement today, we can now meet connectivity requirements for customers who use other cloud service providers to meet their IT needs,” Satya Parimi, GVP, product management for TWCBC, said in a statement.

Time Warner Cable Business Services more than 700,000 business customers. TWC pulled in $836 million in business services revenues in Q3 2015, up from $724 million in the year-ago period. 

RCN Business, the commercial services arm of RCN, said it has upgraded its Ethernet network backbone to include 100 Gigabit per second links.

With the upgrade, RCN Business, a Metro Ethernet Forum 2.0 certified carrier, said it can now scale its Ethernet services from 3 Mbps to 100 Gbps.

RCN Business is using the platform to target small- and medium-sized businesses and enterprises in markets  such as Boston; Chicago; Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley, Pa.; Washington, D.C.; and New York  City. RCN is battling in a highly competitive marketplace. 

AT&T, Level 3, Verizon, CenturyLink, Time  Warner Cable, Comcast, XO and Cox Communications topped Vertical Systems Group’s Carrier Ethernet Services leaderboard for mid-year 2015.  Bright House Networks, Charter Communications,  Cogent, Cablevision Systems’s Lightpath, Windstream and Zayo made up the “challenge” tier, which lists providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market.

RCN Business, which offers a suite of Ethernet services spanning E-Line, E-LAN and E-Access,  made Vertical Systems’s “market player’ tier, which factors in all providers with port share below 1%.

Adding another sports venue to its service wins, Comcast Business said the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks has picked the unit to upgrade team’s data, voice and video services at Philips Arena, the team’s home court.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but Comcast said the Hawks is moving away from managing multiple vendors for different services and instead consolidating their data, voice and video services with Comcast Business.

On the broadband end, Comcast Business will equip the facility with a dedicated 100 Mbps Ethernet connection, while also providing PRI trunks over fiber and TV service.

“Internet connectivity impacts all aspects of our operation, from enabling the media to circulate their coverage, to supporting the coaching and front office team members with everything from scouting to ticket sales,” said Andrew Steinberg, executive vice president and chief revenue officer, Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena, in a statement.

"Most enterprise IT managers don't have to worry about thousands of people suddenly showing up at their office and riding on their network, but that is a near daily occurrence for the Atlanta Hawks’ IT team," added Cleve Lewis, VP of business services for Comcast. “In the business of professional sports, it is absolutely a given now that fans attending games, and the media covering them, expect fast, reliable service, which our advanced Ethernet delivers.” 

The deal with the Hawks follows other pro sports-oriented agreements Comcast Business has salted away with the Atlanta Braves, the Tennessee Titans, San Francisco 49ers, Denver Broncos, Jacksonville Jaguars, Boston Celtics, Oakland A’s, Boston Red Sox, and Detroit Tigers.

Comcast Business retained its spot as the fastest-growing Ethernet provider in the U.S. in 2014, matching the distinction the MSO achieved in 2013, according to new data from Vertical Systems Group.

Comcast's business services unit pulled in $1.05 billion in revenues in the fourth quarter of 2014, and $3.9 billion for the full-year, up 22% versus 2013. The bulk of those revenues are still coming way of smaller business served off of Comcast’s hybrid fiber/coax networks and not yet from its fiber-based Metro Ethernet platform.

Speaking on the MSO’s fourth quarter call on Tuesday (Feb. 24), Comcast Cable president and CEO Neil Smit said Comcast Business is enjoying about 25% penetration in the small- and mid-sized commercial services sector, and about 5% in the mid-market, the area that the MSO is targeting with MetroE. Comcast has also developed an “Ethernet @Home” service that runs off of HFC to serve smaller business customers. 

As for the broader Ethernet market, AT&T was the top U.S. Ethernet provider in 2014, according to Vertical Systems Group’s new leaderboard, followed by Level 3 (aided by its acquisition of tw telecom last year), Verizon Communications, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Cox, and XO Communications.

Providers in Vertical Systems Group’s “Challenge Tier,” which include companies with 1% to 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market, include Charter Communications, Cogent, Lightpath (Cablevisions Systems), Windstraem and Zayo.

Vertical Systems bases its rankings on billable retail port installations.

Charter Communications is in the process of separating its businesses services operations into two groups – one that will focus on small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), and another that will target larger, enterprise commercial customers and also utilize the operator's new "Spectrum" branding, Tom Rutledge, Charter’s president and CEO, said Thursday on the MSO’s fourth quarter earnings call.

That shares similarities with the playbook used by Cablevision Systems, Rutledge’s former company, which leans on one division to serve SMBs primarily via HFC, and another, Lightpath, to support larger enterprise customers with a fiber-based Metro Ethernet platform.

Word of Charter’s new business services set-up comes amid a generally solid fourth quarter in which the rate of business services revenues growth slowed a bit. Charter pulled in $262 million in business services revenues in the fourth quarter, a 16.1% increase versus the year ago quarter. The $253 in commercial revenues generated in the third quarter of 2014 represented a year-on-year increase of 17.7%. Rutledge attributed the difference in growth rate in part to a slowing of Charter’s cell tower backhaul business.

Looking ahead, he said Charter intends to accelerate growth in the business services segment with new product and pricing strategies, adding that the MSO will also be in position to take advantage of a more attractive footprint following pending system swaps and transactions that won't happen until after Comcast and Time Warner Cable seal up their proposed merger.

On the residential side, Rutledge also offered an update on the rollout of Charter’s new cloud-based Spectrum Guide, setting a goal to have it deployed to over half of its retained footprint, or about 1.5 million video subscribers, in 2015.

Charter hasn’t announced which markets will get it first, but it’s using technology from ActiveVideo Networks and Zodiac Interactive that will allow the MSO to offer the new UI on all two-way, interactive set-tops, regardless of age or processing power, including old DCT-2000s or its new IP-capable Worldbox. Amplifying why Charter has eschewed the use of downstream-only Digital Transport Adapters (DTAs) for its all-digital deployment, Rutledge noted that the new UI won’t run on one-way DTAs (Comcast has suggested that it’s technically possible to "force-tune" a DTA using an iPad or another mobile device that rely on an IP-based upstream connection).

Rutledge was also asked to give his read on the FCC’s decision to raise the definition of broadband to 25 Mbps down by 3 Mbps upstream, and what share of Charter’s footprint is being served by telco competitors with that level of service. According to Rutledge, U-verse’s average customer gets 6 Mbps, while Charter markets a baseline service of 60 Mbps down. Charter has a 4% overlap with Verizon FiOS.

“From a practical point of view today, we are dramatically different than they are,” Rutledge said of AT&T U-verse, later suggesting that Charter might be served by shifting its marketing strategy to: “AT&T doesn’t sell broadband,” but that the MSO has not made a decision to do that.

AT&T launched a 75 Mbps U-verse tier in some markets last year, complementing iers that deliver downstream speeds of 6 Mbps, 12 Mbps, 18 Mbps, 24 Mbps, and 45 Mbps, respectively. AT&T has also introduced 100 Mbps and 1-Gig services in select areas where it has begun to introduce its new fiber-based “GigaPower” service.

Vastly expanding the reach of its commercial-class Ethernet platform, Comcast Business on Monday formally rolled out Ethernet @Home, a service that can be delivered via the operator’s widely deployed hybrid fiber coax (HFC) network.

Ethernet @Home will give Comcast a way to build on its fiber-based Metro Ethernet platform that targets mid-sized business customers. Comcast sees the product addressing a range of use cases, including full-time teleworkers as well as healthcare and IT professionals and corporate executives who work from home on occasion but still require the kind of high-performing, private network connectivity that Ethernet can provide at their office locations.

Among the early adopters of Ethernet @Home is Cooper University Health Care of Camden, N.J., which is using the system to help its radiologists rapidly and securely review images and patient files from their homes via Cooper’s private network.

Comcast, citing estimates from Global Workplace Analytics, noted that about 50% of the U.S. workforce holds a job that is compatible with at least part-time work from home. Another report from the Telework Research Network sees the number of full-time teleworkers rising to nearly 5 million by 2016.

The new HFC-based Ethernet product “is really oriented to our mid-markets and enterprise customers,” Mike Tighe, executive director, data services, for Comcast Business, said, noting that the operator has been using “Ethernet everywhere” terminology to drive home the implication of the offering. “It’s about enabling Ethernet connectivity anywhere our customer needs to be…taking Ethernet where it’s never been before.”

He said Comcast has been offering an Ethernet over HFC product for about 24 months, up to symmetrical 10 Mbps, with a priority-class of service, but started to introduce the new Ethernet @Home service over the summer. The new Ethernet @Home comes in a range of service types, including Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI), Ethernet Private Line (EPL) and Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL).

“10-Meg Ethernet is the new T-1,” Tighe said.

Word of the new offering began to emerge last month when Light Reading caught wind that the Ethernet @Home service was up for an award with the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF).

The new product is entering the mix as business services continue to represent a significant growth driver for Comcast. Its business services unit generated $1.01 billion in revenues in the third quarter of 2014, putting it on an annual run rate of more than $4 billion. 

AT&T U-verse has begun to ramp up the deployment of a fiber-based service for business customers in select markets that will start off delivering up to 300 Mbps, but will eventually be ratcheted up to 1 Gbps.

The AT&T Business Fiber offering, targeted to multi-tenant commercial buildings, comes out of the telco’s Project Velocity IP upgrade project.

Early on, the new fiber-based service is being offered to more than 16,000 businesses located in “AT&T Fiber Ready Buildings” in Austin and San Antonio, Texas; Detroit; Indianapolis; Sacramento, Calif.; and Orlando, Fla.  Other markets will be announced later this year, the telco said.

Tiers for AT&T’s fiber-fed service for business starts at 25 Mbps (downstream) for $50 per month.  AT&T is introducing the service as it faces stiffer competition from Comcast, Cox Communications and other cable operators that are targeting small- and mid-sized businesses with fiber-based Ethernet services.

The new business-focused effort also enters the fray as AT&T starts to roll out a targeted, residential fiber-based “GigaPower” service in markets such as Austin and Dallas/Ft. Worth, with several others in the works.