Windstream 2013 Annual Report Download - page 106

8
COMPETITION
We experience intense competition in both our business and consumer markets as described below. For additional information, see
"Regulation" in Item 1, "Business" and Item 1A, "Risk Factors".
Business
The market for business customers is highly competitive. During 2013, business customer locations decreased by approximately
29,600 or 4.7 percent. Our growth in enterprise customer locations is outpaced by losses in small business customer locations,
typically due to competition from cable companies. However, our enterprise locations are driving growth in revenue through
purchases of integrated voice and data services, hosted solutions and managed services, and advanced data services such as multi-site
networking. Our small business customers are driving growth in revenues by purchasing value-added services such as data backup,
hosting services, and tech support.
Our primary competitors are other communications providers and cable television companies. In substantially all of our business
markets, we face competition from other communications carriers. They offer similar services, from traditional voice to advanced data
and technology services using similar facilities and technologies as we do, and compete directly with us for customers of all sizes.
Cable television companies compete with us primarily for small or single-location businesses. Cable companies have deployed
technology to offer Internet services to their customers and offer competing voice and data services over the Internet connection. In
addition, their networks are capable of supporting wireless backhaul services.
To compete effectively in our business markets, we are investing in our network and service offerings to offer the most technologically
advanced solutions available. We rely on scalable, customizable solutions and a suite of services that allows us to meet all of our
business customers' communications needs.
Consumer
We experience intense competition for consumer services. During 2013, we lost approximately 119,600 consumer voice lines, or 6.5
percent of our total customer base. Sources of competition in our consumer service areas include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Cable television companies: Cable television providers are aggressively offering high-speed Internet, voice and video
services in our service areas. These services are typically bundled and offered to our customers at competitive prices.
• Wireless carriers: Wireless providers primarily compete for voice services in our consumer markets. Consumers continue to
disconnect residential voice service in favor of wireless service. In addition, wireless companies continue to expand their
high-speed Internet offerings, which may result in more intense competition for our high-speed Internet customers.
• Communications carriers: We are required to lease our facilities and capacity in our consumer areas to other communications
carriers. These companies compete with us by providing voice and high-speed Internet services to consumers.
We are generally subject to more stringent regulation than our competitors in our consumer markets. For example, as a carrier of last
resort, we are required to provide basic phone service to customers in our service areas regardless of whether it is cost-effective to do
so.
We are committed to retaining customers by offering faster broadband speeds and value-added services, while also offering the
convenience of bundling those services with voice and video services. During 2013, consumer high-speed Internet customers
decreased by approximately 43,600, or 3.6 percent.