| BendBroadband | |
| Type: | Subsidiary |
| Founded: | 1955 |
| Hq Location City: | Bend, Oregon |
| Hq Location Country: | United States |
| Area Served: | Central Oregon |
| Products: | Cable television Broadband internet VoIP phone Television broadcasting |
| Industry: | Telecommunications Mass media |
| Revenue: | 70 million |
| Revenue Year: | 2013 |
| Num Employees Year: | May 2014 |
| Parent: | Telephone and Data Systems |
| Num Employees: | 280 |
| Subsid: | Zolo Media KBNZ KOHD |
BendBroadband is a cable television and internet provider in the U.S. state of Oregon. Based in Bend, it serves Central Oregon and also owns several television stations and a data center. As of September 2014, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Telephone 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 to Redmond and Sisters.[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 from nCUBE.[5]
In 2009, the company started a wireless network to provide internet and telephone service, which was upgraded to LTE in 2011.[6] BendBroadband opened a 30000ft2 data center, the Vault, in 2011.[7] [8] In February 2014, it sold off its LTE spectrum to AT&T.[6] The company sold itself to Telephone 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 operates KBNZ, 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.