At long last, Comcast is reportedly launching its mobile service, Xfinity Mobile, with a formal announcement expected shortly. Comcast’s mobile service will have nationwide coverage but is expected to be marketed only to Comcast customers, about 50 million potential homes.
Separately, Charter Communications could launch its own mobile service in 2018.
Many observers think the immediate strategy is not the ultimate strategy, even if Comcast executives believe the economics of entering the market as a mobile virtual network operator are favorable.
Eventually, many believe, Comcast will seek to become a facilities-based provider, in part because doing so offers the chance to boost profit margins.
In a mobile market where most of the market share is held by the top-four national providers, Comcast and Charter likely will represent the same sort of market share threat cable TV companies proved to be in the consumer voice and business special access markets.
Perhaps not many think Comcast and Charter will do as well as they have in the consumer internet access business, where the cable firms are the leading providers. But few would likely doubt that the new cable challengers will take some market share initially, and sizable share, ultimately.
Cable executives often in the past have said they would be careful about getting into yet another mature business that is fiercely competitive. And yet, that is precisely what they will be doing.
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