Comcast Will Bid in 600-MHz Auction

Comcast plans to file as a bidder in the 600-MHz spectrum auction, perhaps seeking to acquire spectrum in areas where it already operates fixed network assets.

That is unlikely to be a final or long-term strategy, as the mobile business largely is a business that requires national scale. In other words, to paraphrase a sports analogy, Comcast will have to “go national, or go home.”

If Comcast wants to be a player in the mobile business, and some of us believe it long has planned to do so, it will have to be a national provider.

But that will require something of an adjustment in behavior. Cable TV businesses always have been “local” businesses, even as ownership created “national” brands. And part of the unique culture of the U.S. cable TV business is that cable companies have refrained from competing against each other.

To be sure, that has largely been the pattern in the fixed network “telephone” business as well. But the tier one U.S. telcos long have become accustomed to direct competition in mobility, in enterprise services, long distance services and now in entertainment video.

Mobility will require that Comcast operate in geographies where it does not have local access assets, and which are served by other cable TV companies.

To be sure, that opens the door to cooperation with other firms.

But that has proven a difficult task in the past. Some do not recall that U.S. cable TV companies once partnered with Sprint in ownership of spectrum assets, and also tried to create a nationally-branded mobility offering, working with Sprint.

At various times, U.S. cable TV companies also have acquired spectrum in their local operating areas. Aside from selling the assets eventually, the strategy has never worked.

One reason might be that a national mobile business is difficult to create on multiple joint operating agreements, with independent owners with their own interests.

“Wireless is a national market, and it’s the nature of mobility services that customers don’t only use them in their home markets.  Eventually, if Comcast is going to be a player, they will need to have a national solution,” said Craig Moffett, analyst at MoffettNathanson.

That virtually certainly means Comcast eventually will have to get a big national footprint of its own, and control that entity on its own.

How that happens is the only issue.