RCN, MediaOne Keep Competition Fierce in BEANTOWN.(Company Business and Marketing)

Competition is changing the way cable operators do business around the nation, but never more so than in suburban Boston, where telecommunications providers in several medium-sized communities west of the city have battled for customers' hearts, minds and pocketbooks for two to three years.

These towns -- Arlington, Somerville, Newton, Waltham and Watertown -- are ground zero in a struggle for market share that pits incumbent cable operator MediaOne Group (soon to be AT&T) against insurgent RCN Corp. for video, voice and data services. There are satellite companies, too, as well as mighty Bell Atlantic Corp., plus countless smaller firms wing for a piece of the action in telephony and high-speed Internet access.

"It's (the Boston suburbs) one of the most competitive markets in the country," says Alicia Matthews, director-cable television division of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy. The FCC recognized this in 1999, when it declared Arlington, Newton and Somerville as communities that …