Charter pitches free mobile line to SMBs
After launching its "Spectrum One" broadband/mobile convergence promo to residential customers last fall, Charter Communications has extended a similar bundle to its small and midsized businesses.
Charter's new offering for new and existing SMB customers, a promo that stands to accelerate mobile line growth, adds in one free line of unlimited service from Spectrum Mobile for a year.
(Source: Charter Communications)
New customers who sign up for Spectrum Business Internet and Business Voice or Charter's Business Connect, a premium service tailored for at-home or mobile workers that includes RingCentral, can get the unlimited mobile line free for a year. Charter said its Unlimited Spectrum Mobile for Business service regularly sells for $29.99 per month.
Existing Charter business customers also can qualify for a free line of unlimited mobile for a year when they bundle Business Internet or voice service, or if they add a second mobile line to their existing business Internet service.
Promo launched last fall to residential subs
Charter introduced Spectrum One last fall, with an initial focus on residential customers. That offering also includes a free line of unlimited mobile service for a year.
At the time, the company viewed Spectrum One as a way to boost mobile line counts while also benefitting a residential home broadband service that's under pressure from fiber and fixed wireless access competition alongside a general saturation of the home Internet market.
Charter added a record 615,000 mobile lines in the fourth quarter of 2022, with the vast majority (600,000) coming from residential customers. Charter ended 2022 with 5.29 million mobile lines: 5.11 million residential mobile lines and 60,000 business mobile lines.
Charter said Spectrum One played a minor role in mobile line adds in Q4, as up to 80% of new mobile line adds came from existing home broadband customers upgrading to Spectrum Mobile. But Charter's hopeful that Spectrum One will play a bigger role as more customers become aware of the promo and its focus on service convergence.
"Because it's a completely new category, it's going to take a little while to educate into the marketplace," Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said on the company's Q4 2022 earnings call. "The potential for mobile to be a significant driver of new Internet sales is still largely untapped as we educate non-subscribers of the Spectrum One proposition."
Related posts:
- Bundling and convergence in the US: By the numbers
- Charter rakes in record 615K mobile lines, base balloons to 5.29M
- FWA is 'wireless substitution' and DOCSIS 'not done at 4.0' – Charter CEO
- Charter plots big multi-gig network, wireless upgrades
- Charter pitches 'Spectrum One' to new and existing subs
- Charter expects 'SpectrumOne' to accelerate mobile line growth
— Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading
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