Cablevision Systems says their public Wi-Fi mesh play in New York has contributed to a nearly unbelievable 70 percent growth in net subscriber additions for the quarter, a rate higher than any other cable operator in North America.
That’s according to the Dell’Oro Group, which sees Cablevision’s success as contributing to double-digit growth in municipal wireless users in 2009, even though the service provider mesh wireless LAN market declined by almost 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.
“Cablevision’s Optimum Wi-Fi service is rekindling interest in municipal WiFi applications among other large service providers, such as Comcast,” said Ben Kwan, analyst for wireless LAN research at Dell’Oro Group. “For this and other reasons, we believe municipal Wi-Fi applications will become an increasingly important growth driver for the service provider mesh market in 2009.”
For Cablevision’s existing customers, it acts as a retention device and sweetens the pot for those deciding between DSL from Verizon and cable modem. And it gives Cablevision a competitive edge when Clearwire rolls out WiMAX broadband wireless in its markets.
