Point Broadband, a high-speed internet service provider based in West Point, Georgia, said it has received an investment from private equity firm GTCR to help accelerate its expansion plans. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Point Broadband was founded in 2017 and offers fiber-to-the-premises broadband service to residential and business customers in several markets east of the Mississippi River. The company said it is actively expanding its footprint via FTTP builds in near adjacent markets,  and that the investment from GTCR will help accelerate plans to expand its network into underserved communities. 

"GTCR's strategic investment will help accelerate the deployment of our fiber-based broadband solutions to a range of markets, including small town USA and rural America," Point Broadband co-founder and CEO Todd Holt said in a press release. "GTCR shares our core values of customer service and community engagement and has a proven track record of deploying capital to build state-of-the-art broadband networks. We are excited to welcome GTCR to the Point Broadband family as we enter our next phase of growth."

Stifel served as lead financial advisor and Houlihan Lokey served as co-financial advisor to Point Broadband. Credit Suisse and Rothschild & Co. served as financial advisors and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to GTCR.

"Point Broadband has a strong focus on best-in-class customer service supported by a localized presence in the communities they serve, and we believe Point is well-positioned to serve the growing demand for broadband services in markets across the nation," GTCR managing director Mark Anderson said in a press release. 

Mediacom Communications reported some of its strongest financial growth in years in the fourth quarter, fueled primarily by gains in high-speed data customers.

The mid-sized cable operator lost about 7,000 basic-video subscribers in the fourth quarter, a big improvement over the 10,000 it lost in the same period in 2014. For the full year, Mediacom nearly halved its video losses to 35,000 from 55,000, its best performance in seven years. The company added that of those video losses, about 75% to 80% were video-only customers.

On the high-speed data front Mediacom achieved another seven-year best – it added 72,000 HSD customers for the year – and its phone customer additions more than doubled from 14,000 in 2014 to 33,000 in 2015, its best year since 2010. For the quarter, HSD additions improved to 18,000 vs. 16,000 in the prior year while phone additions were slightly better at 9,000, comparted with 8,000 in the same period in 2014.

The improved customer growth translated into financial gains too. Revenue at its Mediacom Broadband and Mediacom LLC units rose 3.9% and 4,3%, respectively, during the quarter. Adjusted OIBDA at the units increased 3.7% and 6.1%, respectively.  

Time Warner Cable said residential sub growth for full-year 2015 was the MSO’s best ever, an achievement that comes as the operator is in the process of being acquired by Charter Communications (the FCC has paused its shot clock on that deal for 15 days). 

TWC said it added a net 618,000 customer relationships during 2015, highlighted by a rarity -- the addition of 32,000 net video subs -- as well as 1 million high-speed data additions, and 1.03 million voice net adds.

"TWC’s stellar 2015 residential subscriber growth is a testament to the efforts of our entire team," Rob Marcus, chairman and CEO of TWC, said in a statement. "We’re especially pleased that we were able to add residential video customers for the first time in nine years – a real milestone for our company and the industry.

"Ordinarily we wouldn’t announce subscriber results until our earnings release, but given our results, I couldn’t wait to thank the team for its outstanding performance," he added.

TWC hasn’t announced its Q4 2015 reporting date, but the residential subscriber announcement didn’t lift the MSO’s shares on Monday, a day marked by a sell-off apparently driven by fears of an economic slowdown in China.

TWC shares were down $2.75 (1.48%) to $182.84 in late-afternoon trading Monday. 

WOW! Business, the commercial services arm of Internet, video and voice provider WideOpenWest, is introducing its new 110-Megabits per second high-speed data service in three new markets  – Augusta, Ga.; Charleston, S.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Panama City, Fla.

The rollout brings to 10 the number of Southeast markets with the service and the total number of areas with the capability to 16, including six markets in the Midwest.

The 110 Mbps service, delivered by cable modem, complements the expanding WOW! Business service lineup of Internet, voice, data and cloud computing services. The new faster Internet service is intended for businesses that have outgrown their current plans and require more bandwidth to meet their needs. In addition, with the new speeds, WOW! Business will not require businesses to bundle voice to receive the best pricing. Download/upload speed tiers of 8/1 Mbps, 15/2 Mbps, 30/5 Mbps and 60/5 Mbps are also available.

“We’re nearing the completion of our rapid expansion of high-speed Internet service in the Southeast and Midwest and are already seeing an excellent response rate from single and multi-location businesses in a variety of market segments,” said WOW! Business senior vice president Brad Cheedle in a statement. “Unlike many other providers, we’re listening to our customers and delivering the flexibility and high level of customer service they want and expect without requiring businesses to purchase a bundle that includes voice or other products.”

WOW! Business provides IP-based network, data, voice and cloud services for small and mid-sized business, enterprise, government and wholesale customers. The company owns and operates more than 40,000 miles of local fiber-optic and coaxial networks in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest which, along with its data centers, provide customers with scalable, low-latency access to national carrier backbones.

“We’re simplifying our high-speed Internet product set with new plans that double the download and triple the upload speeds, giving businesses more and better options to help them improve productivity and increase customer satisfaction,” said WOW! vice president of product management Steve Gorman in a statement. “The new higher speeds also allow businesses to more efficiently use the WOW! Business cloud infrastructure for offsite data backup and recovery, IaaS and our other cloud computing services.”