Wireless will be hot during this year’s 2018 National Association of Broadcasters show is being held in Las Vegas this week. In years past, this show has been filled with all the new bells and whistles the television industry wanted to roll out. I think this year will be bigger than ever thanks to cable TV companies rolling out their wireless offerings.
In a recent speech, I focused on the new opportunity the cable TV industry has in its grasp. The only question is will they be successful rolling it out. The opportunity is wireless.
Cable television companies are starting to enter wireless. This is a new business opportunity for them, but not in the way you expect. This will generate lots of attention and questions from industry watchers, analysts, investors, workers and players alike.
Cable TV companies starting to offer wireless
The big question is simply, will wireless be a winning move for cable TV companies this time around? I believe it will be successful, but not in the typical way.
I have had discussions with executives at cable TV companies as they are entering the wireless world. While there are more questions than answers, the approach many are taking makes sense.
First, we are seeing industries like pay TV and wireless coming together. Wireless will continue to expand and play an important role in a wider variety of companies and industries. Social networks like Facebook and e-commerce players like Amazon.com will play a role as well as we move ahead.
Wireless or mobile continues to grow and change
This early change wave has to do with cable TV and wireless. So, how will this impact the cable television industry and how will it impact the wireless industry?
The core wireless industry will remain as it is, but there are new slices of this pie being created as well. With that said, I predict over the next several years mobile or wireless will continue to rapidly grow.
So far, only Comcast has entered wireless with their Xfinity Mobile service. Later this year we are expecting to see Charter also enter wireless with what may be called Spectrum Mobile. Next year we will see Altice enter wireless as well. We don’t know the name of that service yet.
Xfinity Mobile and Spectrum Mobile are MVNO players reselling Verizon Wireless. Altice will be an MVNO reselling Sprint. Plus, there are all sorts of smaller players in the cable television space who will also enter wireless like these three larger players.
Comcast Xfinity Mobile is first cable TV company to enter wireless
So, wireless is changing as it welcomes the cable TV competitors. At the same time the pay TV is also changing as it welcomes new competitors like AT&T DirecTV NOW, Netflix, Apple TV, Facebook TV, HULU and so many others.
Both new growth and stable customer bases will occur in wireless and pay TV. And this growth will look different from what we traditionally expect to see in these spaces. Over time new growth will also encourage other competitors in other industries to join the party. That’s where companies like Amazon, Facebook and others will enter this new, and larger industry.
Wireless industry grows, changes and expands
Let’s pull the camera back and take a look at the new wireless industry.
First, we have the four big wireless carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile and Sprint. These four players have the vast majority of wireless market share today and will most likely hang onto it for the foreseeable future.
Google has also entered wireless with their Project Fi mobile service. Google is an MVNO and resells both T-Mobile and Sprint.
There are also many smaller players like Consumer Cellular, Tracfone, StraightTalk and others. These are MVNO players reselling wireless services from the majors.
Comcast Xfinity Mobile entered wireless nearly a year ago. They have been showing strong growth so far. I think when Charter Spectrum Mobile and Altice enter wireless, they could show the same kind of success. However, we’ll have to wait and see.
Comcast Xfinity Mobile wireless strategy is different
Let’s take a closer look at how cable TV companies are moving into wireless. They are not entering this space like a traditional wireless competitor. They don’t have a bloody competitive battle in mind. All they want to do is create a sticky bundle of services and solidify their customer base.
Why this strategy? The reason is simple. The marketplace is changing. Yesterday, we did business with different companies within different sectors. Today, we can by services from new competitors.
That means today we can choose our cable television company to offer us pay TV, mobile TV, wireless telephone service, VoIP based telephone, high speed Internet and more. This is the direction every cable TV company is moving, some faster than others.
The more services they can get you to use, the more solid their relationship with their customer base is. If customers use multiple services, they become stickier. And that’s the goal. It’s really that simple.
At the same time, the threat is the same kind of bundle is being offered by the telephone company like AT&T and Verizon. Their customers can also buy the same bundle of services like traditional telephone, VoIP telephone, wireless telephone, pay TV, wireless TV, high speed Internet and more.
Cable TV needs to create sticky customers
This is the new competitive battleground. This is the reason cable television companies have to gear up in order to more effectively compete against their new competitors, the local telephone companies.
The competitive playing field is changing. It always changes. Today, we still look at the industry as having two sides with similar offerings, cable TV vs. telephone companies. Going forward, I see both of these sides coming together to create one new and larger communications industry.
One question is, what will we call this new, combined industry? Both sides will offer the same services. There will be many new competitors and that’s why every player needs to sharpen their edge. In order to compete and to win.
We are just in the middle of this massive transformation which will take several years to unfold. The big question is this. How will the marketplace change? How will leadership in the marketplace change? I don’t know yet. No one does.
However, there is a huge new opportunity for those companies who have the guts to go out into the storm and carve out a winning position, whether they be existing players or new players.
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