NTCA's The New Edge » 3G

Cox Abandons Plans for its Own Wireless Network

Jesse Ward — Tue, 31 May 2011 19:15:32 +0000

Cox Communications announced early last week that it has abandoned plans to launch its own wireless network and will instead focus on rolling out wireless voice and data service via its wholesale agreement with Sprint Nextel.

“We will soon begin to decommission our 3G network to better focus on making Cox Wireless available to more than 50% of our footprint this year,” Cox said in a statement. “We believe this approach is good for our customers, allowing us to take the necessary steps to fulfill our promise to deliver a Cox experience that customers expect from us. In continuing with our successful wholesale model for 3G wireless services, we will accomplish speed to market while achieving greater operational efficiencies from a wholesale model that continues to improve.”

Using Sprint’s network, Cox already has launched 3G wireless voice and data service in Hampton Roads, Va.; Omaha, Neb.; Orange County, Calif.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Tulsa, Okla.; Rhode Island; Cleveland, Ohio; and its service area in Connecticut.

As you may remember, Cox was initially involved in Sprint’s “Pivot” wireless venture along with Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks. Back in 2008, Cox announced that it was cutting ties with Pivot. Then in October 2008, the MSO revealed plans to launch its own wireless network. However, Cox never put its own 3G CDMA networks into service. The cable company initially said the reason for building its own network was to control the entire operation, including back-office functions, support and billing.

Up until this point, the privately-held MSO had been busy building towers and deploying base stations in a handful of markets. Cox also had been examining how to migrate its to-be-built 3G network to 4G. In early 2010, the cable company conducted trials of voice and high-definition video over LTE. With the decision to cease the 3G network buildout, the cable operator is revising its plans for 4G and LTE.

Multichannel News notes that Cox is heavily invested in spectrum licenses, to the tune of more than $550 million, including $304.6 million for 700-MHz licenses in the FCC’s 2008 auction, and $248.3 million for Advanced Wireless Spectrum (AWS) licenses.

For more, see this post at Multichannel News.

Best Buy Offers 3G and 4G Mobile Broadband

Jesse Ward — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:55:58 +0000

Best Buy is joining forces with Clearwire. Beginning in 2011, Best Buy will offer a new 4G tier for its recently introduced Best Buy Connect mobile Internet service.

Launched just a few weeks ago, Best Buy Connect currently rides on Sprint’s 3G network, and offers plans with and without contracts, starting at $29.99 for 250 megabytes. The service is available for Gobi-embedded laptops or netbooks. The company has set up separate Best Buy Mobile stores and has carved out prominent parts of its store devoted to selling service plans.

According to Best Buy, its mobile broadband service differs from traditional offerings by addressing some of the irritations people typically face in mobile networking. Best Buy Connect promises several customer service advantages, all built upon service and convenience, including: one-stop shopping, selection and activation, complete after-sales support, and “a trusted human connection through it all.”

With this new partnership, Best Buy has become the first major wholesaler, outside of Clearwire’s strategic investors, to utilize Clearwire’s 4G WiMAX network and offer service under the its own branded name.

“This new agreement is particularly strategic for our ‘network of networks’ business model,” said Teresa Elder, president of strategic partnerships and wholesale at Clearwire. “Not only is this one of the first major wholesale agreements beyond our group of strategic investors, but it also demonstrates the interest in our network from companies outside of traditional service providers. We look forward to supporting Best Buy in the months and years ahead.”

Best Buy has set-up this website with additional details: www.bestbuy.com/bestbuyconnect.

Rumor: Verizon to Launch Usage-Based 3G Pricing

Jesse Ward — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:40:02 +0000

Update: John Killian, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Verizon, reported on the carrier’s annual earnings conf call that VZW has no no immediate plans to migrate to usage-based data pricing plans. However, Killian said Verizon is studying the possibility of adding such plans for 3G.

Verizon Wireless is planning to introduce new usage-based mobile data pricing plans on July 29, according to a post at Engadget. The tech blog cited an unnamed source which offered few details except that Verizon is preparing to announce the pricing changes at the end of this month.

Numerous media outlets have repeated the 3G usage-based pricing rumor, but Verzion has declined to comment. However, just yesterday, Verizon business development executive director Jennifer Byrne was quoted in media reports stating that new Droid X users are consuming 5X the amount of data as compared to other device users, perhaps laying the groundwork for the yet-to-be confirmed pricing changes. Further, Verizon executives have repeatedly noted that the carrier likely will release 4G usage-based data pricing when it launches its LTE network in the fourth quarter.

AT&T paved the way back in June when it switched from a flat-rate pricing scheme to a usage-based model for mobile data. Analysts have speculated that other carriers might follow suit. Of note, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA have indicated they have no plans to change their current pricing structures.

For more, view the Engadget post.

Verizon’s Nexus One Dead?

Kevin McGuire — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:29:30 +0000

In January, Google confirmed the arrival of its highly anticipated phone, the Nexus One. Available on T-Mobile initially, then on Verizon this spring, the Android based device was Google’s first foray into selling its own device, rather than just its OS. It was a dramatic shift from Google as software to Google as hardware, and techies were split as to if this was a good thing for the industry.

Popular tech blog Engadget is reporting that Verizon will not be getting the Nexus One. In a recent post, they say, “We just heard back from Google — the Verizon Nexus One is dead; long live the Incredible.” Google’s official statement:

We won’t be selling a Nexus One with Verizon, and this is a reflection of the amazing innovation happening across the open Android ecosystem. Verizon Wireless customers who want an Android phone with the power of the Nexus One can get the Droid Incredible by HTC.

So what does this mean? Except for the fact that Verizon will not be getting a Nexus One, it’s anyone’s guess. When I first read the story, I thought that maybe Google was getting out of the hardware business. But according to the Nexus One site, Vodafone is now accepting pre-orders for the device, and it still looks to be available for T-Mobile. Perhaps there were contract negotiations that broke down, but Verizon is still offering the Incredible. I’ll take a chance and suggest that the US cellular market is now saturated, as clearly shown in recent earnings releases. Verizon netted only 423,000 wireless customers under contract in the first quarter, the lowest number in nearly a decade, and far below expectations. AT&T did better, but still just north of 500,000 subs. Since all eyes are on Google, they don’t want to out of the gate with lackluster sales. Given that both the Nexus One and Incredible are manufactured by HTC, why have the two compete with each other in this very mature market?

But then again, maybe it was because they couldn’t fix the 3G coverage issues. In a support forum posting on April 21st, a Google Employee states:

Hey guys,

I’ve seen some recent speculation on this thread about an OTA to improve 3G connectivity and I want to give you an update on the situation. While we are continuing to monitor user feedback regarding the 3G performance on the Nexus One, we are no longer investigating further engineering improvements at this time. If you are still experiencing 3G issues, we recommend that you try changing your location or even the orientation of your phone, as this may help in areas with weaker coverage.

I mean, really? Read the next several pages of the forum for a lesson in what poor customer service will get you. I’m thinking there’s more to come on this story.

PC World Ranks AT&T Top 3G Network

Kevin McGuire — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:53:29 +0000

We’ve seen the ads with both Verizon and AT&T each claiming that they have the better 3G network. But whom were we to believe? According to PC World, the winner is A&T.

Interestingly, AT&T fared poorly in the same series of tests last year. It’s average 13 city download speed was just over 800 kbps. But after a concerted effort to enhance their network (fueled I would guess by data demand and bad press), AT&T has achieved an 84% improvement over 2009. The tests show that AT&T now boasts 13 city average download speeds of over 1400 kbps, besting the nearest competition by 67%

It doesn’t appear that AT&T is going to stop there either. According to its website, it “… plan[s] to increase 3G speeds via our HSPA 7.2 upgrade and backhaul rollout while adding thousands of new cell sites to enhance wireless coverage and capacity.” If you go out to the press releases on their website, there are nearly 30 releases (dated February 17th and 18th) that describe their intent to invest in states to improve the quality of their mobile broadband network. And they all contain this paragraph:

AT&T’s 2010 wireless and wireline capital investment is expected to be in the $18 billion to $19 billion range companywide, an increase of between 5 and 10 percent over 2009. This planned amount includes an increase of about $2 billion in capital expenditures for wireless and backhaul related to AT&T’s wireless network. This planned level of investment is framed by the expectation that regulatory and legislative decisions relating to the telecom sector will continue to be sensitive to investment.

Now that the mobile market is saturated (308M people in the US, over 276M wireless users), carriers are now fighting to woo customers away from their competitors, and keep them on their networks. Devices are going to be very important as we’ve seen with the iPhone, but I believe networks will be even more important in the future. What good are devices if they are rendered unusable by an over-saturated network? Now, about their customer service…

This year, we plan to increase 3G speeds via our HSPA 7.2 upgrade and backhaul rollout while adding thousands of new cell sites to enhance wireless coverage and capacity.