Time Warner Telecom Tops $1 Billion in 2007

• Finally, she said, Time Warner Telecom is leveraging the newly acquired markets to serve multicity customers. “We’ve already seen favorable traction from this extended reach and we expect more in the future,” she said, noting proposals to muilticity enterprises in the pipeline have grown more than 40 percent in the past six months and many include the new markets.

Other initiatives also contributed to the integration. In 2007 the company turned over half of its sales people and sales engineers, enabling it to upgrade its talent in advanced data services and help fuel its enterprise sales initiatives. While these employees will take 12 months to 18 months to reach full productivity, Herda said the company saw an uptick in performance from new hires in the latter half of 2007.

The company also added customer relationship specialists in its acquired markets to cultivate sales to existing customers, freeing up sales people to target new accounts. Using this same technique with its earlier GST acquisition, the company increased revenue retention from 96 percent to more than 99 percent.

She said 2007 has laid the groundwork for the company to consider future opportunities more efficiently, including market expansion, product capabilities or some other type of transaction. Future acquisitions, she noted, are more likely to be for added capabilities as the company is contented with its presence in the 75 markets it serves today.

In 2008, the company, which has the use of its name through June, expects to spend up to $7 million on rebranding.

Time Warner Telecom Inc. www.twtelecom.net

PAETEC Communications www.paetec.com

XO Communications Inc. www.xo.com