Five Questions With: Jay Allbaugh

Jay Allbaugh, Cox Communications’ senior vice president and region manager, talked with Providence Business News about some of the new initiatives the company is spearheading, as well as Get Started R.I., a Shark Tank-like business competition that will be held on Sept. 24.

PBN: Tell me about Get Started R.I. and how Cox is helping entrepreneurs and small businesses.

ALLBAUGH: Entrepreneurs and small businesses are primary drivers of the economy in Rhode Island and across the country. The goal of Cox Business is to partner with our customers and the business community at large to support economic growth in the state.
One of the ways we do this is by presenting Get Started R.I. in collaboration with Inc. Magazine. The third-annual event is a Shark Tank-like business pitch competition wherein local entrepreneurs compete for a $10,000 technology package, courtesy of Cox Business.
This year, our six finalists were chosen from a field of more than 30 applicants, and represent a diverse cross-section of the vibrant startup community here in the state. Those presenting run the entrepreneurial gamut of providing wind energy solutions to healthy skin care products to 3D surveying. They will present to a panel of experts in digital marketing, funding and business growth strategy.
Each year, the finalists have wowed the hundreds of people in the audience with their ideas, suggesting a very hopeful future for Rhode Island business. Last year’s winner, Food4Good, is a nonprofit food truck set to launch in the coming months. The socially-conscious food truck will sell lunch and dinner on weekdays and act as a mobile soup kitchen on weekends.

PBN: Cox recently launched WiFi in Newport and in Kennedy Plaza – does the company have plans for any other locations in Rhode Island? Why did Cox want to offer this?

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ALLBAUGH: Our goal has always been to provide our customers with the services and technology they need to stay connected to the things they love most. In 2015, that means helping to make our customers’ mobile connectivity experience as simple and reliable as their home high-speed Internet connection.
There are now more mobile devices than there are people on Earth. There will be seven billion new WiFi-enabled devices manufactured in the next three years alone. Cox WiFi allows our customers to take those billions of devices to our hotspots to get online safely and easily.
For our initial launch in Rhode Island, we wanted to focus on heavily-trafficked public locations where tourists, commuters, shoppers and pedestrians all gather or pass through. Kennedy Plaza is now covered in WiFi, as is a mile stretch of Upper and Lower Thames streets in Newport. Cox customers with Preferred, Premier or Ultimate Internet packages have free access to Cox WiFi as part of their service.
Our hotspots are a $300,000 investment in Rhode Island, and will include another Providence location in the near future.
Our Rhode Island hotpots are just one part of the nation’s largest network of WiFi connectivity, CableWiFi, which consists of more than 400,000 hotspots across the country. The hotspots are strategically located in high-traffic areas such as restaurants, malls, sports arenas, parks and beaches in cities like New York, Washington D.C. and Boston. Customers of Comcast, Time Warner, Bright House and Optimum can also access WiFi at these hotspots.

PBN: What is the TakeCharge! initiative?

ALLBAUGH: According to our Cox Internet Safety Survey, only 60 percent of teens who admit to being bullied online have told an adult, which marks a 20 percent increase since the 2013 survey. A staggering 54 percent of teens have witnessed online bullying in some form.
We have partnered with R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin to teach middle and high schoolers how to TakeCharge! of online bullying. TakeCharge! is a community outreach campaign developed by Cox to empower parents and caregivers to manage their children’s access to mass media content. For more than 10 years, this initiative has striven to increase customers’ awareness of online safety, as well as of the parental controls and filtering tools already available on cable, Internet and wireless services.
The average teen accesses the Internet using a mobile device, such as a smartphone or a tablet, but not all of these devices have parental controls like a traditional computer does. Cox wants students and their parents to understand Internet safety especially since these typical teens spend more than five hours a day on their mobile devices.
Cox launched the TakeCharge! public awareness campaign last year. The campaign encouraged students to take a pledge not to bully, to support those targeted by bullies and seek help if being bullied. We will be visiting more Rhode Island schools during the 2015-2016 school year.

PBN: What are some other new initiatives the company is working on in this highly competitive industry?

ALLBAUGH: This is an exciting time to be a consumer. Not only is there more content than ever, but there are more ways to consume that content than ever. And it’s all coming to you at blazingly fast speeds.
In fact, Cox has increased Internet speeds for 11 consecutive years as a result of our investment in our network and commitment to offer access and choice to our customers. Last year, we doubled the speeds of our two most popular tiers to 100Mbps and 50Mbps respectively. Earlier this year, we significantly increased the speeds of our two most budget-friendly tiers. And by the end of 2015, our fastest tier, Ultimate, will increase to 200Mbps download by 20 Mbps upload.
We were also the first cable operator to commit to providing gigabit (1,000Mbps) Internet speeds. G1GABLAST will begin to rollout in all Cox markets by the end of 2016.
Cox Homelife provides a wide array of both security and advanced smart home features not found in most traditional alarm systems with time-saving, cost-saving and worry-saving features to help customers manage their homes.
The backbone of our competitive strategy is, truly, our network backbone. In the past decade, we’ve invested more than half a billion dollars in our Rhode Island network, which crisscrosses the state for more than 6,000 miles.
Cox Business has recently launched Security Solutions, which, similar to Homelife for residences, offers our business customers 24/7 detection and HD surveillance. We already protected your data with services like colocation; now we protect your physical location as well.

PBN: Tell me about the upcoming Tech Center opening and what the center will entail.

ALLBAUGH: Cox’s technology centers are the centerpiece of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America Club Tech program, which provides students access to curriculum to advance their computer literacy skills. They also help bridge the gap for kids who have no access to a cell phone, computer or an Internet connection at home. Children can use the Tech Center computers to communicate with teachers, check grades, complete assignments and even print school reports.
Later this fall, Cox Communications and the James M. Cox Foundation will be donating a new $25,000 Cox Technology Center to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Warwick Norwood Clubhouse. The Technology Center includes state-of-the-art computers, along with desktops, monitors, printers, docking stations, wireless routers, wireless cards and proprietary Microsoft and Club Tech software. Through the Club Tech suite of programs, kids will learn the basics of business software, plus stay safe online and move on to advanced hardware and networking skills.
This donation is part of a $135,000 grant Cox Communications and the Cox Foundation provided for seven new technology centers located at Boys & Girls Clubs as well as other clubs across the country.

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