Cable Show 2010 trends: Wireless--mobile and portable

Wireless--Mobile and Portable

The industry hedged on its wireless bets. It held a whole panel session where wireless was discussed and came away with promises and little else. There was no Comcast-branded smartphone on the show floor; no Cox iPhone service; no Cablevision BlackBerry. That's a trend that continues downward.

Trending upward is the ubiquity of WiFi to keep cable customers on cable networks even when they leave the home. The trinity of Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and Comcast in the New York metro area, fueled in part by BelAir Networks' gear, is a good example of the positive use of wireless technology.

"People are using it," said John Bickham, president of Cable & Communications at Cablevision, noting that the number of sessions has "almost doubled from around 3 million to 5 million" since the MSO went to an auto-authentication process. Almost 17 percent of Cablevision's customers, he said, use Optimum WiFi in any given month.

Continuing to trend downward was any inclination other than talk that cable is getting into the mobile business. There was a lot of talk, but there wasn't any evidence that the industry is ready to compete with Verizon Wireless or AT&T for the mobile crowd.

"Mobility to Cox is pretty important," said President Pat Esser.

Stephen Bye, vice president of wireless strategy and development, echoed that sentiment and added some emphasis of his own.

"We have a brand. We're in the process of building our own 3G network in selected markets ... and are very encouraged with the response we're seeing."

Maybe so, but the bigger, more obvious industry trend was a reflection of what Catherine Avgiris, senior vice president and general manager of communications and data services, meant when she said "smartphones are an opportunity for us."

An opportunity to put Comcast applications on someone else's platform. That's not an upward trend no matter how you shake it.

Also trending down because it's still tethered was the WorldGate Ojo, the videophone that keeps plugging along without a discernible audience but with a show presence.