Cable Companies Announce WiFi Roaming Pact

Cablevision Systems Corp., Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable announced an agreement to allow their high-speed Internet customers to roam across the companies’ respective WiFi networks for free in the New York metropolitan area.

The strategic move is designed to entice and retain customers with a value-added feature, while also placing pressure on its telco competitors, namely Verizon, which have the weakest WiFi offerings. The importance of WiFi as a fast and reliable way to access the Internet is becoming increasingly clear as WiFi-enabled devices continue to proliferate, most recently Apple’s iPad.

The three cable operators have very few WiFi territories that overlap. Time Warner Cable has deployed a handful of WiFi hotspots in Manhattan, Queens and at Long Island Railroad rail stations. Cablevision, on the other hand, invested $300 million to upgrade its cable network to DOCSIS 3.0 and offer free Wi-Fi to a significant number of locations in the NY/NJ/CT market.

Each access point now displays authentication options for all three WiFi services — Optimum WiFi, Time Warner Cable WiFi and Xfinity WiFi — allowing customers to use their own provider’s sign-on process to get online.

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