Telecom garners UL listing, will grow contract monitoring business

CINCINNATI-More than a year after launching its home and small business security offering here, Cincinnati Bell has received its UL listing and will use it to grow its monitoring operations through the growth of its contract central station operations. Cincinnati Bell, which is owned by Broadwing Inc., has experienced steady growth since introducing its Complete Protection offering last April, said Teresa Werner, director of consumer marketing for Cincinnati Bell. Through a strategy of slow and steady growth, the company has relied on organic, internal subscriber development rather than growth by acquisition. "We've tripled in size since we've started, and we continue to see each month an increase in our subscriber base," Werner said. "Cincinnati Bell has a large sales force and they are selling all the products to our customers." Early this year, a focus on higher-end systems, featuring video surveillance packages and card access systems was added to Complete Protection for an added area of revenue, Werner said. Now, with the UL listing and the additional mercantile listing that will allow Cincinnati Bell to provide service to jewelry story and furriers, the company is also targeting alarm dealers to boost Cincinnati Bell's contract monitoring business, company officials said. "We have signed up a few (dealers), but we have really just started over the past four months to focus on this and have a lot of deals in works," Werner said. Future additions to the Complete Protection service include components that will eventually become a home networking offering, such as the company's new video surveillance package for the home. "We're continually looking at ways to tie the security system to other household components, and we are having discussions with a lot of other partner companies but nothing is announced today as our next step," Werner said. One aspect of the standard offering proving popular is the water leak monitoring, said Tressie Long, media relations, due to extraordinary amounts of rain dumped on the Ohio Valley this spring. The company had three times as many water alarms in May as it did three months before, in February.