Comcast Corp. is moving closer to introducing a wireless service that would compete with major U.S. carriers.
The country’s largest cable company has told Verizon Communications Inc. that it plans to resell Verizon’s wireless service as part of a 2012 airwaves deal, according to two people familiar with the matter. Under that agreement, a consortium of cable companies led by Comcast sold nationwide spectrum licenses to Verizon for $3.6 billion and secured the rights to resell its wireless services.
Verizon chief financial officer Fran Shammo on Tuesday said cable companies he didn’t name have informed the carrier they now want to execute on that part of the agreement.
Comcast would offer a hybrid cellular and Wi-Fi service, using Verizon’s network and Wi-Fi hotspots.
The entry of Comcast in the market would come at a time when Verizon and No. 2 carrier AT&T Inc. are already under pressure from smaller rivals such as T-Mobile US Inc.
“This will be bad for the carriers, with the possible exception of T-Mobile US Inc., and good for cable,” New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin wrote in a note Tuesday. A market trial of a Comcast wireless service could begin six months after the notification and a commercial service could start “by this time next year,” he wrote.
The cable companies could save as much as half the network costs of a conventional wireless carrier and offer a service starting at $25 to $30 a month with attractive margins because of their Wi-Fi hotspots, Chaplin said.
Cablevision Systems Corp. unveiled Freewheel, a low-cost mobile phone service in January that works only when customers are connected to Wi-Fi.
Cable companies have tried before to add wireless as a fourth service offering of TV, Internet and digital phone for a so-called quadruple play. One of the first was a partnership between Sprint and a group of cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner and Cox Communications Inc. That project, called Pivot, shuttered after two years.
