Time Warner to offer telephone service to businesses in New York City market

Time Warner is planning to offer telephone service to businesses in New York City in an effort to compete with the regional telephone company Nynex Corp. Time Warner owns the largest urban cable-television system in New York with one million subscribers. The announcement suggests that cable companies will likely present a challenge to the regional Bell operating companies. Time Warner has already developed a business partnership with US West. That company owns a 25% share of Time Warner's cable and film entertainment division. An initial offering will be developed by 1995, providing alternate access service that will provide connections between businesses and long-distance companies. Time Warner will develop a 22-mile fiber-optic network in Manhattan in order to offer the services and will use an AT&T digital switch to handle network traffic.