One thing cable companies are trying in order to gain market share is to offer Wi-Fi services to subscribers. We learned late last year that Cablevision doubled the size of its Wi-Fi network, which stretches across its prime real estate, Long Island. The effort, it appears, has paid off. According to the Dell’Oro Group, Wi-Fi accounted for more than 70 percent of Cablevision’s fourth quarter adds. Those are some solid numbers, and they could lead to further building out of Wi-Fi networks. Even better, it might encourage cable companies to continue investing in WiMax networks, which they’d be able to use for similar purposes.
The Dell’Oro Group had this to say about the phenomenon:
“In the two quarters since Cablevision’s rollout of Optimum WiFi, a complementary outdoor WiFi service for its existing broadband subscribers, Cablevision has seen a strong lift in net subscriber additions,” said Ben Kwan, Analyst of Wireless LAN research at Dell’Oro Group. “Cablevision’s Optimum WiFi service is rekindling interest in municipal WiFi applications among other large service providers, such as Comcast. For this and other reasons, we believe municipal WiFi applications will become an increasingly important growth driver for the service provider mesh market in 2009,” added Kwan.
Give people access in more places and they’ll flock to you. Cable companies have the advantage of offering this as a free add-on to cable services. Now, if only cellular companies could find a way to work airtime cards at a reasonable price into regular cell phone plans. They’re not attracting a robust market with plans at ~$60 per month, but if they could somehow work that down they might find a market for commuters who want to work while en route.
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