CROSSING THE MOAT
Well, the wireless walled gardens will see more competitive pressure again soon, this time from a concerted assault by cable companies. Industry trade publications are indicating that a cable consortium including Comcast, Time Warner and Cox (only the biggest of the biggies), are about to sign a wireless wholesaling agreement (aka a MVNO, Mobile Virtual Network Operator) deal with Sprint Nextel.
I'd posted about MVNOs and wireless walled gardens back in July, positing that:
"Try as they might, the wireless carriers will eventually realize that what they dread the most, becoming "just dumb pipes", is actually the smartest strategy for the one that realizes it and executes on it first. Typically it's not the number one or two player in an oligopoly, but someone lower down the list."
Well, Sprint Nextel are definitely "further down the list" from Verizon Wireless and Cingular ATT, who are not pursuing the MVNO strategy.
In fact, given that the cable companies will likely compete in the small business/enterprise market with a "quadruple play" (cable, broadband, internet telephony and wireless) package with the wireless companies, Sprint may have to do the deal without the participation of Nextel. This is because Nextel is much more focused on the enterprise market than other cellcos with the "wireless radio" features of it's iDen network.
In any case, the barbarians continue to aggregate around the gates.
Comments