For all the talk about lofty television ventures from Verizon Communications and AT&T, phone service – particularly wireless – sits center stage in the bundle battle between cable and telecom companies.
Qwest plans to launch a new wireless service next year that would allow customers to make cellphone calls through their home Internet, saving minutes on their calling plans.
Not to be outdone, Comcast announced recently that it will launch an enhanced phone service in Denver in the coming months that will allow customers to surf the Web and check e-mail on their home phones. The company is also in the midst of rolling out a cellphone service called Pivot, although the launch is going slower than some analysts anticipated.
AT&T, which operates the nation’s largest local phone and cellphone carriers, recently called wireless “the core of the business.”
“Wireless is growing and changing faster than the others. It is the exciting part of the business right now,” said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst in Atlanta. “The competitors think either you lead in wireless or you will become invisible to the customer.”
Phone and cable companies are engaged in a fierce battle over residential customers, each offering packages of voice, video and high-speed Internet services. Cable operators, in particular, have had success luring customers from the Baby Bells with a digital voice offering. In return, Verizon and AT&T have committed billions of dollars to video ventures.
But it’s phone service that’s making noise these days.
During his final Qwest earnings call last month, then chief executive Dick Notebaert said the company would not have 60 percent penetration on its bundle “if we did not have wireless.”
He said the new cellphone technology will give the Denver-based company, which resells Sprint Nextel wireless service, a big advantage.
“As we get into the first quarter of next year and we start to see the deployment of a new type of cellphone that lets you use Internet protocol on your high-speed Internet line as you walk into your home … I think that is going to be a real boon to us,” Notebaert said.
He said the new service could help customers save 25 percent of their calling-plan minutes.
Qwest spokeswoman Kate Varden declined to comment beyond Notebaert’s remarks about the new offering.
“They’re using that to differentiate their service and to pick up market share,” said Donna Jaegers, a telecom analyst with Janco Partners.
T-Mobile offers a similar service called T-Mobile HotSpot @Home.
Although Comcast has been forthcoming about plans for a new enhanced home-phone service, the company has been fairly quiet about its cellphone product, which is sold through a joint venture with Sprint.
Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons wouldn’t disclose when the cellphone service would be available in Colorado.
“From a competitive standpoint, we want to be cautious about the amount of information we release in regard to new-product launches,” Parsons said.
Jaegers said the cellphone venture is “a big question mark right now.”
“Sprint is saying it’s successful, the cable guys aren’t talking about it at all, and investors are left sort of wondering,” Jaegers said. “Usually whenever something is really good news, you hear the companies crowing about it as fast as they can.”
AT&T, which has an exclusive carriage agreement with the much-ballyhooed iPhone, is focusing its residential strategy on wireless. The company recently launched a bundle of home broadband and wireless services. For years, large carriers required customers to have a landline to subscribe to high-speed Internet service.
Qwest, the primary local phone company in Colorado, was the first Baby Bell to offer standalone broadband in 2004.
“Wireless is the core of the business now,” AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson told USA Today in a recent interview. “It’s the core of how we grow the business going forward.”
Staff writer Andy Vuong can be reached at 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com. Visit his blog at .
