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=Kinetic (brand)=

Kinetic is the brand name of a suite of telecommunications products and services for residential and business customers which includes fiber broadband internet access, local and long distance telephone service, digital subscriber line transmission, unified communications, internet protocol television, and home security systems. Kinetic is one of three divisions operated by Windstream Holdings, a privately held Fortune 1000 communications and software company. The other units are Windstream Enterprise and Windstream Wholesale. Kinetic wordmark and service mark are registered by Windstream Intellectual Property Services, LLC.

History
The Kinetic brand was first introduced in October 2014 by Windstream to market a new TV entertainment service delivered through the IPTV platform Ericsson Mediaroom that leveraged the company's fiber-backed network. Kinetic TV was first made available to 50,000 homes in the Lincoln, NE area. Kinetic was dubbed a "next-generation TV entertainment service" upon the brand's inauguration, with features including wireless set top boxes, DVR, multi-screen viewing, video-on-demand and multiview (allowing consumers to watch up to six channels simultaneously).

Kinetic Portfolio Expansion
In September 2017, three years after launching Kinetic TV service, the brand was extended across a broader product and service portfolio aimed at consumer and small business markets in 18 states. The Kinetic brand would be featured in markets where 25 Mbps or better were available. This meant that approximately half of the households and small businesses in its local footprint would have access to the expanded product suite. The new premium Kinetic brand rolled out to offer Kinetic Internet, a high speed internet product with bandwidth suitable for streaming video; Kinetic Gig, with speeds of 1Gbps delivered over a 100 percent fiber-optic network; Kinetic TV, the TV service previously launched; and Kinetic Business Solutions, a suite of customizable solutions targeting businesses.

New Kinetic Regional Headquarters
In May, 2022 Kinetic broke ground on its new regional headquarters located in the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Research Campus in Lexington, Ky. The 30,000-square-foot, energy efficient building was built by the Denham-Blythe Company, a design-build construction group also located in Lexington.

The new headquarters ribbon-cutting ceremony was hosted on June 29, 2023 and was attended by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton. The regional headquarters would serve as a center for leadership and technicians training on active network elements, advanced fiber optic systems, expected to employ a total of 90 individuals.

Kinetic Internet
The Company's network growth trajectory leveraged public-private partnerships (PPPs), including the FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF) II program. CAF II subsidized telecommunications services in rural and remote areas and was a constituent program of the Universal Service Fund which helped operationalize the goals outlined in the National Broadband Plan (United States). Accepting $175 million in funding per year through the seven-year program to help it expand broadband services, the Kinetic Internet expansion helped the company bring a minimum of 10/1 Mbps speeds to over 400,000 rural homes across 17 states.

In early 2021 the Company submitted its application to receive $523 million over 10 years in the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction to bring fiber-to-the-home internet services to almost 200,000 locations in 18 states and received authorizations by March of 2022.

Other PPP projects included fiber broadband expansions in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico and Pennsylvania with partners ranging from federal, state, county and municipal agencies.

Kinetic Internet Subscriber Growth
From its launch in 2017, Kinetic Internet added 378,000 subscribers, and at the end of Q4 2023 reported that 1.6 million total premises had access to Kinetic Fiber internet service.

Kinetic TV
By August of 2017 more than 60% of young adults ages 18 to 29 primarily watched television using streaming services on the internet and the rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Go was altering the media habits of Americans. In late 2018 Kinetic TV began internal user testing of an app-based streaming television product, and by February 2019 became the latest pay TV operator to begin the shift away from a managed video network to an app-based streaming TV experience. The company's ″future proof,″ app-based Kinetic TV service would be powered by the MobiTV CONNECT™ Platform, marking the transition to an extendable, IP-based approach with features including on-demand, live TV, catch-up TV, network DVR, and content recommendations running on popular consumer devices.

OfficeSuite UC
Windstream obtained the OfficeSuite UC brand cloud-based Unified communications (UCaaS) platform through the acquisition of Broadview Networks. The acquisition advanced the company's unified communications product portfolio and helped improve competitiveness to serve SMB customers. By 2019, OfficeSuite UC made the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant as a new entrant in the niche players quadrant, offering IM, presence, telephony, and mobility features, as well as video and audio conferencing, and web conferencing through integration with Zoom (software).

In October 2019, Windstream announced it would be extending OfficeSuite UC to Kinetic Business customers to help meet the communications needs of small and midsized businesses. Prior to this, the suite was earmarked for larger enterprise customers. The OfficeSuite UC solution offered business mobility via softphone applications or mobile twinning to allow “find me, follow me” accessibility from any place and any device with built-in business continuity if the office loses power and access to an administrative portal for customizing and configuring user profiles and call routing with no Information technology (IT) involvement needed.

Further refining the product's feature set designed for small businesses, Kinetic Business launched OfficeSuite Express in early 2022. Featuring a “quick-installation” bundle, the pared down turnkey solution included professional installation for 10 or fewer desktop phones in one location. In December, OfficeSuite UC won the Unified Communications Excellence Award 2022 presented by Internet Telephony magazine. That same month the suite was also named by Gartner to the 2022 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide for the fourth consecutive year.

Kinetic Business
Kinetic Business is a business unit organized under the Kinetic brand division within Windstream to provide business network solutions for small businesses including business internet service, business phone lines, collaboration tools, and cybersecurity in 23 US states.

Go Kinetic Business App
In May, 2022 Kinetic Business launched Go Kinetic Business app, which allows business customers to view and manage their products and services, live chat with support, open and view support tickets, view and pay bills, and view internet usage and system health. Users can download the app in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store (Apple) and it can also be accessed online.

PGA Tour Barbasol Championship Partnership
In 2019 Kinetic Business partnered with the PGA Tour Barbasol Championship, held at Champions at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Ky. to showcase its expanded Kinetic Gig Internet service at the event. Spectators accessed a 10-gigabit network connection wirelessly on their handheld devices.

Kinetic Business continued to serve as the official fiber internet, streaming and technology solutions partner for the Barbasol Championship from 2019 to 2023. For 2024, the event was rebranded to the Kentucky Championship.