Roughly 1,500 Homes in Merriam and Olathe Now Have Access to the Nation's Fastest Internet Speeds and Superior HDTV Over the Region's Highest Performing Residential Fiber-to-the-Home Network
ROSEVILLE, Calif., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Leading independent
communications holding company SureWest Communications (Nasdaq: SURW)
announced today that it has completed its most recent expansion of the
company's renowned fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network, passing 1,500 homes in
the Kansas City communities of Merriam and Olathe with its superior
fiber-optic technology. The company is aggressively implementing a new sales
and marketing campaign to these areas which is showing early signs of
significant customer demand for the highest performing network and
communications services available anywhere in the greater Kansas City region.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050908/SFSUREWESTLOGO)
SureWest plans to reach another 1,500 fiber homes in Merriam and Olathe by
November 2008 and 8,000 total by the end of the year. The company is also
expanding its FTTH network into the community of Prairie Village by the end of
2008 or early 2009.
'This is an exciting time for the company and customers in our Kansas City
market,' said Ken Johnson, SureWest's vice president and general manager of
operations in Kansas. 'Residents from these three neighboring communities
where we were previously unable to serve have been asking us for years when we
were coming to their neighborhoods. Now, not only are we beginning to offer
service to their neighborhoods, we are delivering the most advanced and
superior network in the country.
'We just had a successful commencement to our launch when one of our sales
reps knocked on seven doors and sold six new households our SureWest fiber
services. And during one of our first installations, four of the surrounding
neighbors saw our SureWest service vehicle and chased down our technician to
ask if they could be installed as well.'
SureWest's FTTH platform delivers 100 megabits per second (Mbps) of
bi-directional bandwidth to each customer's home, which is one of the fastest
and most reliable broadband networks of any system in the country. SureWest
provides the only residential service in the United States that delivers 50
Mbps of Internet speed both uploading and downloading, and in 2007 added its
first 50 Mbps customer, making him the man with the fastest Internet speed in
the country at the time
(http://cbs13.com/local/Surewest.Internet.High.2.476640.html).
SureWest is marketing its 5-Star Service promotion to potential FTTH
subscribers, with pricing beginning at $79.95 for a triple-play of unlimited
telephone calling, high-speed Internet and cable TV
(http://everestkc.com/about/rates.shtml).
About SureWest
SureWest Communications (http://www.surewest.com) is one of the nation's
leading integrated communications providers and is the bandwidth leader in the
markets it serves. Headquartered in Northern California for more than 90
years, the company expanded into the Kansas City region in February 2008 with
the acquisition of Everest Broadband, Inc. and offers bundled residential and
commercial services that include IP-based digital and high-definition
television, high-speed Internet, Voice over IP, and local and long distance
telephone. Its fiber-to-the-premise IP-based network in the Sacramento region
features the fastest symmetrical Internet speeds in the nation at up to 50
Mbps. In its Kansas City market (http://www.surewestkc.com), 75 percent of
the company's customers subscribe to at least three services.
Contact: Ron Rogers
Corporate Communications
916-746-3123
r.rogers@surewest.com
SOURCE SureWest Communications
