KENWOOD, Ohio – Cincinnati Bell is hanging up the moniker that generations of Cincinnatians grew up with in favor of a new name that company officials say reflects the company’s growth beyond Cincinnati and “the next 150 years.”
On Wednesday, the company founded in 1873 as a telegraph service announced it would begin doing business as Altafiber in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.
“The word ‘alta’ is rooted in a word that means elevated, and that’s what altafiber is doing: We’re providing an elevated connection through fiber and raising the standard of service to our customers,” said CEO Leigh Fox, who announced the name change Wednesday morning at the Cincinnati Bell Store on Kenwood Road.
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The company, which once was part of the “Ma Bell” system of companies that dominated the telephone services industry for more than a century, will transition to the Altafiber brand over the next six to nine months, according to a news release. It’s been called Cincinnati Bell since 1971.
The Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar will also be renamed, but exactly what is “still in transition” as the new brand rolls out, according to the company.
The branding change will not impact its Hawaiian Telcom or IT Services business, which is branded as CBTS, the release states.
The name change comes less than six months after Cincinnati Bell was acquired by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, which took the company private in a cash-and-debt deal valued at more than $2.9 billion.
The sale provided the regional telecommunications provider with money to expand its fiber network and provide faster Internet speeds.
“Building out these (fiber) networks is incredibly expensive,” Fox said as a handful of were busy changing the signs at the Kenwood store to the Altafiber name. “We’ve already spent roughly $1 billion locally, and we’re going to spend another $1 billion locally.
Fiber uses photons passed through glass tubing to transmit data at a much faster rate than electrical pulses transmitted over copper wire, which has been the dominant platform for internet service.
Altafiber’s transition to a mostly fiber network means its business and individual customers will have internet speeds that are about 20 times faster than regular cable, according to the company.
“We’ll be one of the first cities in the United States to almost completely transition to an all-fiber network, and that’s going to be huge for the city,” Fox said, noting the company still provides landline phone service and copper-wire internet connections to a small portion of its more than 320,000 customers.
The company’s fiber network already offers what it calls “fiber-to-the-premises” connectivity to approximately 60% of addresses in Greater Cincinnati, Fox said.
“We will probably be the No. 1 city in the United States for access to digital infrastructure in the next two to three years,” he said.
Meanwhile, the company recently announced partnerships with Greene County in Ohio and the City of Greendale, Indiana, as it continues to expand its geographic reach.
In addition, the company recently announced a new regional headquarters in Dayton, Ohio, including a retail store and business office there.
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Fox said the current executive team will continue to lead the company., and it will continue to invest in community initiatives to provide better education, health care and employment opportunities even after the name change has been completed.
“We are proud of the Cincinnati Bell name, and it will always be a part of our history,” said Fox. “We are still the local hometown company, with 2,000 employees across Greater Cincinnati who are dedicated to connecting our customers with what matters most through technology for the next 150 years.”