Charter Communications has raised the downstream speeds supported by its business-class broadband service for small- and mid-sized businesses in St. Louis, with its high-end tier now maxing out at 200 Mbps.
Charter Business said it is raising speeds for three of those business Internet tiers for no added cost:
-Customers on the 60 Mbps tier are now getting 100 Mbps;
-Customers on the 80 Mbps offering are now getting 150 Mbps; and
-Customers on the 100 Mbps plan are now getting 200 Mbps.
It marks the second time Charter is using its St. Louis market to trot out its highest-speed offerings. Earlier this year, Charter raised its entry level broadband tier in the market from 30 Mbps (downstream) to 100 Mbps as part of its all-digital “Charter Spectrum” upgrade. In other Spectrum upgrade markets, Charter is lifting its entry-level tier from 30 Mbps to 60 Mbps.
On the business side in St. Louis, Charter said this marks the second time it has raised speeds in the last year without jacking up the price, noting that commercial customers are requiring more capacity to handle larger data files and to run cloud-based apps.
For Charter, like other MSOs, business services has emerged as an important growth engine. Charter pulled in commercial serviced revenues of $244 million in the second quarter, up from $205 million in the year-ago quarter.
To entice more businesses to switch providers, Charter Business recently announced that it would buy out the early termination fees of prospective new customers.
