Cable companies quit ‘Pivot’ : Customers offered free month of service to move to Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel Corp.’s wireless resale relationship with three of the nation’s largest cable companies has come to an end. According to media reports, Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Cox Communications Inc. are pulling out of their Pivot-branded effort with the nation’s 3rd largest wireless operator, and will work to move their wireless customers onto Sprint Nextel’s books.
Pivot “was operationally complex,” said Comcast spokesman John Demming. “It didn’t really provide us with the flexibility we needed for a national product.”
Those selling Pivot generally agreed the service required significant amounts of time and effort, and changes and updates required widespread coordination.
Demming said Comcast stopped selling its Pivot-branded wireless phone service yesterday, and will alert all its current customers of the situation by Friday. He said Comcast will work to move its Pivot subscribers to Sprint Nextel, and customers who move to Sprint Nextel will get a free month of service. Demming said Comcast will wave its early termination fee for all Pivot subscribers.
Jill Ullman, a spokeswoman for Cox, said the cable company is making similar moves, and hopes to alert its Pivot subscribers within a month. Those who move to Sprint Nextel will receive a free month of service, said Ullman, and Cox will also give out gift certificates or service credits as a sign of goodwill.
Neither Cox’s Ullman nor Comcast’s Demming would provide subscriber numbers, usage metrics or financial statistics. A Time Warner Cable representative was not immediately available.
The news comes as another blow to Sprint Nextel, which has suffered from dwindling subscriber numbers and troubling financials. A number of the carrier’s other resale partners, including Disney Mobile and Mobile ESPN, have also been forced to shut down due to anemic subscriber numbers.
However, Sprint Nextel spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer stressed that the carrier continues to work with a variety of cable vendors for services including Voice over Internet Protocol and backhaul. She also said Sprint Nextel is working with Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Cable to “determine alternate business structures.”
Cable’s wireless future
Such discussions may not pan out to Sprint Nextel’s liking. Cox, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, through a joint venture, paid $2.4 billion for 137 licenses covering almost 270 million potential customers in 2006’s advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum auction. And earlier this year Cox paid $305 million for 22 licenses in the Federal Communications Commission’s 700 MHz spectrum auction.
Neither Cox’s Ullman nor Comcast’s Demming would discuss their respective companies’ wireless plans. Ullman would only say that Cox is “considering all of our options,” while Demming said Comcast is “still exploring our options on the wireless front.”
Introduced in 2007, Pivot was heralded as a way for some of the nation’s top cable companies to get into the wireless space. The offering allowed the cable companies to sell a wireless service — which carried Sprint Nextel’s brand — alongside their other telecom offerings. Pivot included a number of innovations, including a mobile TV service that featured some, but not all, of the cable companies’ channels.
Pivot eventually reached a total of 33 markets, but Pivot’s owners quit expanding the service in December. In February of this year, Sprint Nextel removed Pivot from its retail locations in order to smooth its store sales process.