Cable giants Comcast and Charter Communications have pointed to their MVNO services as a key growth engine for the future. So, it’s perhaps no surprise that fellow cable player Mediacom appears to be advancing its own mobile ambitions.
As noted by Jeff Moore of Wave7 Research, Mediacom recently moved to trademark the name “Mediacom Mobile.” Though its filing was submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in September, Moore spotlighted it this week in a research note.
The move jibes with comments Mediacom CEO Rocco Commisso made in a note to investors in February 2022. At the time, he said the company was “actively evaluating whether a compelling business case can be made for offering a Mediacom-branded mobile phone service.”
Asked for more detail and whether the filing means Mediacom is indeed pressing ahead with a mobile launch, a company representative told Fierce it is “part of that overall [evaluation] process” but declined to comment further.
Mediacom currently offers broadband, video and phone services to more than 1.4 million customers across 22 states.
Moore told Fierce that there’s more to launching an MVNO than just selecting a network partner. “Obviously if you are going to open up an MVNO, there are a lot of back office capabilities and things you need assistance with,” he explained.
Comcast and Charter both selected Verizon as their network partner and teamed with each other to develop the necessary backend capabilities for a wireless operation. Moore told Fierce that for smaller cable operators like Mediacom, there are several other paths to getting the back office tools they need. Among these are partnerships with mobile virtual network enablers (MVNEs) like Reach Next, which is working with WideOpenWest on its mobile offer, and seeking assistance from the National Content and Technology Cooperative (NCTC).
Moore covered NCTC’s work on this front in a recent interview with LightReading, but the gist is that NCTC is working with a number of its members to help them secure MVNO deals. Moore added that Reach Next has said it’s in talks with “dozens” of cable operators.
Zooming out, Moore said the cable industry’s push into wireless is all about keeping customers as operators face increased competition from fixed wireless access players like T-Mobile and Verizon.
“When I look at the big picture, the cable companies are losing a great number of subscribers to T-Mobile and Verizon as those companies ramp up their wireless home internet capabilities. So, to me, gaining a mobile capability is all about locking down the churn, locking down the number of subscribers that are currently with the cable companies,” he concluded.