Cable Companies And Mobile Solutions...

from the cutting-the-wires... dept

The fact that Time Warner is looking to add a mobile phone solution (via an MVNO arrangement) isn't a surprise. They mentioned it in March, confirmed it in June and talked more seriously about it in November. So, it's not entirely clear why everyone is making a big deal out of the fact that the company is now talking to Sprint about using their network. Sprint, of course, has jumped into the MVNO market in a big way, providing the network for most of these new offerings, from Virgin Mobile to the new ESPN mobile phone offering. It's also not surprising that cable companies are looking to add a mobile phone solution -- that too many people are calling a "quadruple play," when it's really more about making the triple play mobile. However, what's more interesting is that it finally appears that other carriers are waking up to the possibilities of the MVNO market. While lots of people picked up on the fact that T-Mobile USA wasn't looking to team up with any other carrier, it didn't receive quite as much attention that part of their strategy to stay relevant is to offer their network to cable companies in an MVNO-style relationship. For all of those who were afraid that the Sprint-Nextel merger was going to mean less competition, the market is rapidly filling up with new companies who are simply using existing networks to offer service. While it does raise questions about the network provider competing with its own virtual operators, it looks like there's still going to be plenty of competition.