Time Warner Cable plans to ramp up its investment in mobile WiMax this year, reports Light Reading.
“This will develop in exciting ways that we really can’t quite imagine today. I think there’s going to be a whole array of products using these types of networks in the future,” TWC CEO Glenn Britt said on today’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “This is the early beginning – I don’t think any of us can fully imagine what the products are going to be. But it’s an exciting opportunity.”
TWC began marketing its Road Runner Mobile product in Dallas and parts of North Carolina and Hawaii late last year, using Clearwire’s WiMax network.
The MSO said that Road Runner Mobile is only the “first product” to launch on the proto-4G network, noting it could also be used to sell video and other advanced products, and help the operator evolve its hybrid wireline/wireless strategy.
“I think the networks of the future are hybrid networks where similar products are going to be offered to a whole variety of devices,” Britt said. “I think what we’re doing with Clearwire is just the beginning,” he added.
Britt said Time Warner has the capability to develop a 4G wireless voice product, and that it’s working with Clearwire and Sprint Nextel on development. But he stopped short of saying that the MSO would market voice services through WiMax, noting that “there are plenty of voice providers out there in the cellular business.”
“There doesn’t appear to be a crying demand for another one. Nor does it appear we really need that in our product portfolio. But we have the capability if we actually need it. But right now, I don’t think [we] do,” Britt told analysts.
Time Warner Cable plans to enable consumers to program a DVR from a mobile device and the ability to take their video content with them on the go. It will be expanding its 4G Mobile network to additional service areas over the next few months including Dallas, TX and Honolulu and Maui, HI.
Comcast, like Time Warner, is an investor in Clearwire, and also uses the operator’s network to offer service under the Comcast brand. Like T/W, Comcast is offering a small device that plugs into a laptop’s USB port and taps into the 4G network. Chicago was the fourth city to get Comcast’s 4G service, after Philadelphia, Atlanta and Portland, Ore.
