RCN Corp. continued expanding in the Washington, D.C.,
metropolitan area last week by signing an agreement to offer a bundled package of
telecommunications services in Falls Church, Va.
The company struck a long-term deal with the city that
calls for it to build a network capable of offering cable, Internet and telephone
services.
It will provide service under the Starpower brand name used
by its joint venture with Pepco Communications LLC, an affiliate of Potomac Electric Power
Co.
The agreement comes one week after RCN was awarded a
franchise to service 240,000 households in Montgomery County, Md., including the upscale
communities of Chevy Chase, Silver Spring and Rockville.
The company expects to activate its first customer in Falls
Church later this year. The deal represents its first such agreement in Virginia, and it
is part of a strategy of serving most of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan market.
RCN is already providing service in the District of
Columbia and the city of Gaithersburg, Md., where it reports penetration rates of 30
percent for cable and in the mid-20 percent range for local phone service.
"The Washington market continues to evolve for RCN,
with local licenses covering more than a half-million homes in areas that include the
District of Columbia, Maryland and, now, Virginia," RCN chairman David McCourt said
in a prepared statement.
"As in other areas, we are moving aggressively to meet
demand for competitive phone, cable and high-speed Internet services on the part of
consumers who are poorly served by existing monopolies," he added.
