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Time Warner Cable will acquire cable systems in western Tennessee and Kentucky owned by NewWave Communications for $260 million in cash, the company announced this morning.
Some 70,000 subscribers are affected by the sale, expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. It marks Time Warner’s first entry into the state of Tennessee, currently dominated by Comcast and Charter Cable. In Kentucky, Time Warner already serves around 100,000 customers.
The transaction will make NewWave Communications, already a tiny cable operator, even smaller as it plans to continue serving 80,000 customers in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, and South Carolina and those formerly served by Avenue Broadband in Indiana and Illinois.
Time Warner’s cash deal increases speculation the company also remains interested in acquiring Insight Communications, another cable operator up for sale with systems in the same region served by NewWave. Time Warner Cable favors large regional operations serving contiguous territories. But if a bidding war erupts, CEO Glenn Britt has warned the company won’t pay a premium price for mergers and acquisitions.
NewWave’s subscribers have been through a lot in the last decade. Many were originally served by aging cable systems owned and operated by Charter Cable, who sold them to NewWave 
with mixed results. NewWave’s public image is tarnished to some degree by some of its vocal, disaffected customers. The company endures a “NewWave Communications Sucks” Facebook page and blog posts like, New Wave Communications: The Worst ISP in America. The most frequent complaints: poor service and oversold broadband slowing down in the evenings.
Competition for NewWave is primarily from the phone companies, often AT&T and Frontier Communications.
There’s always money for mergers but “we have to cap!”
Time Warner was in Memphis before Comcast. All of their customers, equipment, and Time Warner office locations have all been switched over to Comcast several years back. I think there was a deal where Comcast gave up something in Los Angeles to Time Warner and TW gave Memphis to Comast, iirc.
This was probably before the entity Time Warner Cable, Inc. was created, after being spun off from AOL/Time-Warner. Thanks for the added insight, which explains why I didn’t find a history of Time Warner Cable in Tenn. before.
I’ve been a NewWave customer since they acquired Charter’s Kentucky assets, and I’ve not seen any of the technical issues with my service that the FB and blog posters make (customer service yes, actual products, no). The only issue of note was the long wait for a DVR box, from the local system being so run down by Charter that the system software/hardware was not exactly conducive to modern HD/DVR box designs, and cost them more than what TWC and other big companies could get by ordering in bulk – many customers still have cable boxes from Charter, or its… Read more »
I am one of the NewWave customers having problems. Their service is horrible. I was with my previous provider for almost ten years until I seen a flyer showing me everything I could get for the same price I was already paying. I sacrificed quality for quantity. I wish I had never seen that damn flyer.
Yet another COMPLETELY unsatisfied New Wave Communications Customer in the Bootheel of Missouri. My previous internet provider was AT&T, which unfortunately only had (and has currently) 6M speeds available in my area. On every single site that I use regularly, or even those that I used intermittently or even completely randomly, I would get a reliable ~1M give or take a few hundred KB. Roughly 3 months ago now, I saw a New Wave tech doing an install about 5 houses down from mine on my street, and thought, “Hey, why not ask about their internet packages?” The inner geek… Read more »
I am a NewWave customer in their Illinois territory, which was acquired from Charter. People complain too damn much about their service. I get what they advertise AND I attach a wireless router (with 10x boost) to my 10Meg connection. No problems at all with or without it. I remember when Charter was in Central Illinois – and I clearly remember getting ripped off. $225/month for phone, cable and Internet service? That’s a ripoff! (I now have Dish Network and phone & Internet service with NewWave – combined comes to $85/month.) Just be wary of Time Warner: they’re about as… Read more »
They are almost all engaged in overcharging, but I’d much rather have Time Warner Cable than the dismal Charter Communications (or worse, Mediacom). You are getting an excellent price at just $85 for a triple play package. Time Warner charges a regular price at least $50 more a month for that.
Some idiots claim that they have no problems and get what they pay for when they’ve never ran a speed test. I’ve personally tested several of Newwaves connections in my area, London, Ky, and nobody gets what they pay for, 2megs upstream, that’s it. They advertised 10 meg as the big thing here for up and down. I don’t have time to write a post about my dealings with them, but it would rival Ronnie Nulls. I sit here at day 7 awaiting a tech to show up and “fix” my problem so I can look forward to seeing him… Read more »
Newwave was absolutley horrible. I have complained on a monthly basis to them and they kept sending people and it never got better. We even paid to have ATT and Newwave internet for a year because both were so unreliable that we hoped one would at least work on any given day. Time Warner came once and said we were good. And once again that night it didn’t work. Phone was even going out now because it runs on same line. Time Warner came second time gave me a new box and we are flying on the net now. I… Read more »