Comcast Will Go Wireless in 2017

COMMENTS

Newest First | Oldest First | Threaded View

KBode 9/22/2016 | 8:53:44 AM

Re: Home Alone And I assume the wireless service will lean heavily on the home user gateways converted into public hotspots as well. I still see people surprised that this even exists.

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD

msilbey 9/21/2016 | 2:42:32 PM

Re: Home Alone I've got to assume that Comcast (and partners) will continue to press hard on expanding the public hotspot footprint. They opened up 10,000 to the public in Philly around the DNC event.

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD

Mike Hibberd 9/21/2016 | 6:58:53 AM

Home Alone Interesting development. Blending Wi-Fi and cellular creates a service which reflects end users' connectivity habits. But with the majority of the Wi-Fi access points in this instance being in residential locations, as you point out, you have to wonder what value they will provide to customers out in public. Freely shared public Wi-Fi in retail and service locations is a massive resource, located in the places where customers convene in large numbers. Most homes typically have very few visitors, so the opportunity to use Wi-Fi to improve the customer experience and drive economic benefits for any operator really lies in those high footfall public places.

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD

msilbey 9/20/2016 | 6:13:13 PM

Re: They All Laughed When AT&T Bought DirecTV... Agreed. Though from what I've heard from analysts, Comcast will have the ability to be competitive with pricing, which could definitely make things interesting.

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD

KBode 9/20/2016 | 6:01:04 PM

Re: They All Laughed When AT&T Bought DirecTV... I would think success would depend significantly on price. Also adding another vector that needs support is tricky when you haven't really established you can effectively support the services you already provide. Will be interesting to see what the final project looks like, especially on pricing.

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD

Mitch Wagner 9/20/2016 | 4:07:47 PM

Re: They All Laughed When AT&T Bought DirecTV... It's good move for Comcast. A good percentage of customers will want the one-stop shop of wireless and cable. And Netflix too!

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD

inkstainedwretch 9/20/2016 | 2:54:34 PM

They All Laughed When AT&T Bought DirecTV... You still have to excel at something in the bundle, but not every element in the bundle has to be world class; it merely needs to add enough to the bottom line to keep Wall Street analysts from throwing hissy fits. AT&T is demonstrating this at least -- at least so far.

Participating in the spectrum auction begs the question if it can ever amass enough spectum to be practical. Perhaps whatever it buys will be enough, but if the amount of spectrum any service provider needs continues to be more-than-we-have-now in perpetuity, Comcast might be getting in too late.

If Comcast sees some success with this, five years from now I suspect that people will start to seriously wonder, "Well, why wouldn't Comcast or Charter buy [CenturyLink/Frontier/Verizon/T-Mobile/whatever]?"

--Brian Santo

Reply | Post Message | MESSAGES LIST | START A BOARD