The National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) announced agreements with both Zayo and Cogent for IP transit services for its membership. NCTC is a cooperative of 750 broadband and cable operators serving all 50 states.
Jared Baumann, VP of Broadband Solutions at NCTC tells Telecompetitor that the cooperative has negotiated master services agreements with both Zayo and Cogent, offering exclusive discounted pricing for IP transit services.
“We have worked very hard to aggregate the purchasing power of our members so that they can take advantage of pricing that normally only the largest providers would receive,” Baumann revealed in an interview.
Both Zayo and Cogent offer extensive nationwide optical IP networks, offering wholesale IP transit services to carriers of all kinds. NCTC has put significant emphasis on broadband and IP services, recently hiring Baumann away from C Spire to help in these efforts. Traditional cable companies are transitioning away from featuring cable TV as their primary service to featuring broadband.
NCTC has always aggregated the buying power of its members, first with programming and headend equipment, and now with broadband and IP services. The cooperative recently partnered with Plume for its managed Wi-Fi platform. Baumann says they don’t anticipate pursuing additional IP transit providers, but they are actively looking for transport partners.
NCTC members typically serve more rural and remote areas of the country, and the Zayo and Cogent deals try to address that, according to Baumann.
“One of the things that we are very excited about with the deals that we have negotiated with Cogent and Zayo are the number of locations that our members will be able to access as part of these contracts,” said Baumann. “We have not yet solved for every scenario, but we have been able to get much closer to many of our members than we originally expected. As part of our deal, our pricing is extended to over 1000 locations across the United States.”
