Comcast to Reveal Details on Wireless Service on Thursday Comcast has scheduled an event Thursday morning to disclose more information on the company's looming wireless service. A Comcast announcement states that the company will host "an analyst event to discuss the details of its previously announced mobile initiative, which utilizes an existing MVNO agreement." The 9AM Thursday event should finally begin shedding some light on something the cable giant has been teasing for the better part of two years.

The service, slated for a mid-2017 launch, will operate predominantly on WiFi -- while leaning on the Verizon Wireless network when necessary. The company has yet to offer any hard pricing details on the service, but while speaking at an industry conference last month, Roberts said the company hopes the wireless offering will help nudge users toward bundling additional services. "The product itself is going to save you money by taking our bundle.," Roberts said. "We’re going to sell more products, not including wireless, but broadband, as a result of this offering." How you'll "save money" if the focus is getting you to buy more services from Comcast isn't clear. But Roberts bubbled over at the rise in connected devices, all driving your monthly bandwidth consumption ever higher. “We’re getting ready for a day when you have a smart music system, a smart refrigerator, smart devices and they all just work in their home,” Roberts said. “Hopefully the bits per home continue to rise and the company with the best network, defined as wired and wireless, will have a real advantage.” Roberts is particularly excited, because he knows as home usage grows, those homes will inevitably run into the company's arbitrary and utterly unnecessary usage caps and overage fees. Roberts also knows Comcast's voice service will lean heavily on Comcast's existing footprint of roughly 15 million hotspots. Many of those hotspots exist in consumers homes, where over the last few years firmware updates have turned residential gateways into public WiFi access points. That said, it's hard for most of the industry to get excited about another MVNO. Given Comcast's history of poor customer service, consumers are similarly skeptical. T-Mobile CEO John Legere predicted earlier this year that Comcast's MVNO, like countless MVNO's before it, would struggle to gain traction resulting in Comcast taking a deeper dive into directly offering real cellular wireless connectivity. "The future looks a little rough for these two megacorps as their legacy businesses erode," Legere said of Comcast and Verizon. The freshly merged company would create "the ultimate evil corporation of all time," joked Legere. Granted if long-standing rumors that buying T-Mobile is Comcast's plan B, T-Mobile customers may not be laughing over the long term. Granted if long-standing rumors that buying T-Mobile is Comcast's plan B, T-Mobile customers may not be laughing over the long term.







News Jump Europe's Top Court: Net Neutrality Rules Bar Zero Rating; ViacomCBS To Rebrand CBS All Access As Paramount+; + more news Verizon To Buy Reseller TracFone For $7B; 5G Not The Competitive Threat To Cable Many Thought It Would Be; + more news MS.Wants Records From AT&T On $300M Project; Google Fiber Outages In Austin, Houston, Other Texan Cities; + more news States With The Biggest Decreases In Speed; AT&T Hopes You'll Forget Its Fight Against Accurate Maps; + more news AT&T's CEO Has A Familiar $olution To US Broadband Woes; EarthLink Files Suit Against Charter; + more news 5G Doesn't Live Up To Hype, AT&T's 5G Slower Than Its 4G; Cord-Cutting Now In 37% of Broadband Households; + more news FCC Cited False Broadband Data Despite Warnings; ZTE, Huawei Replacement Cost Is $1.87B, But Only $1B Allocated; + more Cogeco Rejects Altice USA's Atlantic Broadband Bid; AT&T Is Astroturfing The FCC In Support Of Trump Attack; + more news Big CBRS Auction Winners: Verizon, Windstream, Dish, Cablecos; Altice USA makes play for Atlantic Broadband; + more news Verizon, SpaceX, CenturyLink, Charter Among RDOF Bidders; Streaming 1st Choice For 50% Of Viewers: What Now? + more news ---------------------- this week last week most discussed

Most recommended from 20 comments

moulder3

join:2007-05-21

Boston, MA 11 recommendations moulder3 Member YES!!! Comcast as a mobile provider, said no one ever Well, since the Comcast name is trashed and known for even worse customer service than the worst major wireless provider (looking at you, Sprint), may I suggest they name it Wfinity?



I can just see the Comcast PR now...



Wfinity will provide mobile service anywhere throughout the entire USA. Hopping Xfinity WiFi networks will be as seamless as dealing with Comcast customer support, and our wireless network will be just as reliable as your Comcast DVR recordings. Plans start as low as $30 a month (for the first 12 months) and if you use less than 50 voice minutes a month, you'll receive a $5 credit. For each minute about your allotment, you'll only have to pay $10 per 50 minutes.



Why is our service called Wfinity? Because it's wireless and will be just as fun as using standard Xfinity products, except unlike all the other products you're CHOOSING to use Comcast over known competitors who have track records. Please ignore their records of not gouging their customers as much as us, as well their history of providing reliable service.



* Big thanks to all the Comcast customers who are unwittingly allowing us to use their hotspots so we can provide this paid service. We know you never agreed to allow people to use your hotspot (or that it costs you via increased electric bill) as they connect to your cable modem, but we sure do appreciate it! (Suckers!)

Anond938b

@verizon.net 2 recommendations Anond938b Anon Tmobile is ready to do a complete 180 into Comcast's arms Legere is shaming cables mvno approach because he wants tmobile to be bought. His remarks are eerily foreshadowy like he said he predicts 3 wireless ceos could be out the door, but you wouldn't think he was talking about himself. Once tmobile gets a coverage boost from us cellular (seeing as he recently phased out the last major discounts/promotions I think it is imminent) at&t and Verizon are gonna lower their prices to the extent that they kill Sprint because they won't get customers back from tmobile and suddenly it's gonna eat all the customers that held out before, and Comcast's footprint overlaps nicely with T-Mobiles native coverage, and Comcast's mvno initiative will fail especially due to tmobile having more coverage than Verizon, and without the regulatory scrutiny Comcast is gonna buy tmobile, charter is gonna freak out and follow up by buying Verizon, and then we will have a new big 3 that will price fix like hell. Comcast and charters mvno initiatives will fail because the discounts will be small compared to Verizon which itself is too expensive, and only if you get all your services through them, and the service will force you to Xfinity wifi hotspots as much as possible and count it as data because they don't have to pay Verizon if the "data amount" isn't used on their network, so expect a phone experience that won't let you stay on the quality lte network if it can help it. Btw, I think in the dystopian internet future of the us most people will have to buy wireless service from their home broadband provider, because otherwise the broadband prices can be raised to insane levels like how Comcast raises your internet cost if you don't bundle tv so that the bundle is actually cheaper. So in an area where one of the big 3 (charter, at&t, Comcast) has broadband, you will be glued to that provider for wireless. They will just split the customers up by markets, especially when at&t's 5g gets competitive. I think Legere is a cynical, angry person inside, and I get him life is backwards, but he is driving us straight to wireless dystopia. Lol I need to think about what I'm trying to say more, but whatever I'm too tired.