By Jeff Kagan September 27, 2024
FWA is a competitive threat to cable TV like Xfinity, Spectrum, Altice
Earlier this week, I attended the SCTE TechExpo 24 conference held in Atlanta. While this event was all cable TV, I know the cable television industry is facing a perplexing and new wireless challenge. How does it compete with the new wireless broadband service threat newly created by FWA technology and starting to be offered by wireless carriers?
At the expo, I found two new companies with solutions. I will get to them later in this column.
In response to FWA and wireless carrier competition, Comcast Xfinity recently started to talk about a potential solution to the wireless broadband threat. After getting a briefing from Comcast, at this point the customer had to jump through too many hoops just to get it.
FWA wireless broadband is new competitive threat to cable TV
FWA is a real and immediate challenge to cable TV and requires an immediate solution. Now we wait and see what their answer to this challenge is.
You see, cable TV reached its peak around the year 2000. Ever since, it has been losing market share for traditional services. In fact, today the main service offered by the cable TV industry is not cable TV at all. Today the main service is high-speed broadband.
Next, FWA is a new technology and suddenly wireless carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T are beginning to offer wireless broadband.
This is both a growth opportunity for wireless carriers and an urgent, competitive challenge to cable TV.
5GoC wireless broadband using DOCSIS cable television technology
The decades old broadband sector is now entering a new stage. Wireless broadband. The next growth-wave. At the TechExpo 24 event, I found and spoke with senior executives of two companies with technology breakthroughs in this new space.
Suddenly, things are changing quickly. The cable TV industry needs a wireless broadband solution to compete against the new FWA threat from the wireless competitors. These are Cable TV companies like Comcast Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Optima, Cox and telephone companies like AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink. This is what today’s broadband leaders like cable TV and telephone companies are concerned about and focused on today. They need to find a new solution to this threat, and fast.
Air Wireless and Air5 use DOCSIS to help cable TV with wireless broadband
Air Wireless and Air5 are the two, new companies with breakthrough wireless broadband ideas. They work with cable TV technology called DOCSIS service to help cable television companies battle FWA from the wireless carriers and offer wireless broadband themselves.
Air Wireless President Naveen Kadiyala discussed where they are today and what their plans are moving forward.
Air5 CEO Jeff Brown explained to me how this new and disruptive 5G standards-based technology can help the cable TV industry. He says they blend DOCSIS and 5G wireless. He says the result would create a more efficient and better performing wireless broadband service.
Are Air Wireless and Air5 wireless broadband solution for cable TV?
If these work as designed and as explained to me, both Air Wireless and Air5 technology could become a real solution for the cable television industry broadband business. These are two different companies, and they offer different services, but they aim to solve the immediate problem cable TV faces today with broadband competition.
These companies need to focus on two areas with regards to marketing, advertising and public relations.
- One, they need to market their own companies. To create awareness in a noisy industry. To be seen and heard and found by potential customers, which are companies who offer wire line broadband.
- Two, they need to create a name, recognition and understanding of this new segment and create awareness in the marketplace for it as well.
Traditional cable TV is at an inflection point on its growth wave
Plus, since this is a sudden, urgent need for the cable TV industry, there may be others entering this space as well. Things are moving quickly. FWA and 5G wireless broadband from wireless networks like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon is a brand-new competitive threat to the cable TV industry. FWA gives wireless carriers the ability to be a competitor in the wireless broadband space. So, cable TV must find their own solution to this threat as well.
The race is on. When there is a need, suddenly others jump in with new and creative solutions and ideas. This is the rapidly changing marketplace we live in today. New technologies quicky enter and create new market segments. So, let’s keep our eyes open because broadband is starting its next change-wave and growth-wave.
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