

A Convenient, Mysterious Service From Cable Companies - JeremyBanks
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/a-convenient-mysterious-service-from-cable-companies/

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mschwar99
They are preparing to fight off 4G wireless.

Here in Austin, Clear is marketing their wireless full tilt: all the media and
even door to door (had two salesmen come by). The pitch is that the service is
as good as cable broadband (for the "average household") and available
everywhere (home, office, kid's school, on the commute).

No idea if that is true yet, but its easy to see how it could eventually be.
Makes sense to band together against a common threat.

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endtwist
My guess is that you're 95% correct: they're likely warding off Verizon, who
has become a major threat to all three companies. Offering FiOS TV, FiOS
internet, phone, _and_ wireless cell service is tough to compete with — even
if you already offer three of the four.

So, these three companies are trying to prevent people from switching entirely
to Verizon because they already have/are considering Verizon's wireless
service. Or something to that effect.

(Note: I'm from the NY Metro area, so I've kept an eye on all these companies
offerings the past few years.)

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mschwar99
Makes sense to start in an area where some of the big players have territory
that overlaps.

To be clear though - companies like Clear and Sprint aren't just selling 4g
wireless devices, they are selling hotspots filling the roll of routers that
supplant a home internet connection all together.

When Verizon gets in the game - maybe FIOS for heavy need households, 4g
hotspot for a light duty setup?

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fondue
I wonder if they're looking at injecting advertisement into the html stream? I
know some cable companies replace your default search page when they find
you've 404'd. It wouldn't be too hard to inject some pop-up scripts onto
pages.

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piguy314
I was under the impression wireless bandwidth is always one generation behind
cable bandwidth. Are they doing this because they are too lazy to upgrade
their network and maintain their competitive edge over wireless? I can't
imagine a state of the art cable internet connection could ever be seriously
threatened by a wireless connection that offers what, 6Mbps under the best
conditions? With the rise of internet video it seems like physical line
internet providers are here to stay.

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vetinari
With HSDPA/HSUPA you can get 14.4 Mbps down and 5.76 Mbps up (under best
conditions, of course). Yes, it is slower than state of art wired connection,
but is the state of art wired connection available? Do you have 1.25 Gbps FTTH
or 300 Mbps DSL available?

Wired providers became complacent, but wireless didn't. They caught up with
wired and offer extra convenience, usable everywhere, not just at home. Wired
providers should be afraid, very afraid and do something to change the
situation, fast.

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matthew-wegner
The paranoid part of me wonders if this isn't some deliberate net neutrality
play. Maybe they'll start throttling bandwidth to sites that don't pay up, and
they'll be able to point out that they _have_ to do these things to keep the
free wifi service going. And then after people are used to the idea...

