 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications Mass media |
| Founded | 1955 |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Central Oregon |
| Products | Cable television Broadband internet VoIP phone Television broadcasting |
| Revenue | US$70 million (2013) |
Number of employees | 280 (May 2014) |
| Parent | Telephone and Data Systems |
| Subsidiaries | Zolo Media KBNZ KOHD |
| Website | bendbroadband |
BendBroadband is acable television and internet provider in the U.S. state ofOregon. Based inBend, it servesCentral Oregon and also owns several television stations and adata center. As of September 2014, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary ofTelephone and Data Systems, a Fortune 500 company.
The company was founded as Bend TV Cable in 1955.[1] Don Ries and Fred Hartman worked to start the company that started with three channels and charged $3.69 per month.[2]Donald Tykeson bought the company in 1983.[3] In 1997, the company, then known as Bend Cable Communications Inc., started providing internet service.[1] It announced in 1998 it would expand its fiber optic network toRedmond andSisters.[4] By 2004, the company had moved to the BendBroadband moniker, and that year introduced high-definition video-on-demand to its system utilizing technology fromnCUBE.[5]
In 2009, the company started a wireless network to provide internet and telephone service, which was upgraded toLTE in 2011.[6] BendBroadband opened a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) data center, the Vault, in 2011.[7][8] In February 2014, it sold off its LTE spectrum toAT&T.[6] The company sold itself toTelephone and Data Systems (TDS) for $261 million in May 2014.[9] At that time the company had $70 million in annual revenues and 280 employees with Amy Tykeson as CEO.[1]
BendBroadband serves 36,000 cable customers, 22,000 landline customers, and 41,000 internet customers.[1] It also owns Zolo Media, which operatesKBNZ,KOHD, and COTV11, plus an advertising division.[8][9] The company also owns a data center, the Vault,[8] which is now part of OneNeck IT Solutions, a TDS Company.