Time Warner Still Interested In Mobile Service

from the bundles-bundles-bundles dept

Tue, Aug 9th 2005 8:28pm — Carlo Longino

While cable companies have been happy with their bundled offers, they've also been mulling adding wireless service into the mix to complete the quadruple play. Time Warner's reiterated its desire to offer wireless on several occasions, and its CEO did so again today, saying they might pursue an MVNO or partnership arrangement, or make an investment in a carrier, either on its own or with other cable companies. It was rumored earlier in the year that Comcast might have been looking at buying out a mobile operator, but a deal seemed unlikely, while Time Warner's doing an MVNO trial in Kansas City with Sprint, so it's just a matter of when, not if, cable companies make a significant move into wireless. The competitive landscape's changed a bit with Sprint's merger with Nextel. While Sprint remains the so-called carrier's carrier and is the most willing to wholesale its network, the national carriers' size and wireline telco affiliations leave T-Mobile still as the most likely partner or target for cable providers -- something the rumors about its sale only reinforce.

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Anonymous Coward, 10 Aug 2005 @ 12:27am

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Don't people realize that having their internet shot out a over a mile with radio waves is insecure. You can't stop someone from getting the data you're sending and receiving; same principle with a walky-talky. Wireless should only be used for when you need to use it. Not to save the ISPs money so they don't have to wire to your house.
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- Edward Case, 10 Aug 2005 @ 7:16pm
  
  Time Warner Spectrum Play
  Perhaps Time Warner's best play might be as an MVNO with the Sprint 1.9 and 2.5GHz network and buying up slivers of spectrum in major markets in the 2.5 band which can be had at bargain basement prices. This would give them additional bandwidth for content plays and some of the flexibility of an actual carrier. Piggybacking on WiMax standards makes it easier and more cost efficient to enter the marketplace.
  -- Edward Case
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