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Time Warner Cable Sets WiMax December Debut In North Carolina

Operator Bundles 'Road Runner Mobile' With Wired Broadband

Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 10/14/2009 3:01:12 PM

Time Warner Cable will take Road Runner on the road with Dec. 1 the launch of WiMax wireless broadband service in its Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, N.C., markets.

The broadband wireless service -- advertised as providing downloads up to 6 Mbps -- is provided through Clearwire, in which Time Warner Cable holds a 4.5% stake. Sprint Nextel owns 51% of Clearwire, which has also received investments from Comcast, Bright House Networks, Intel and Google.

North CarolinaTWC is selling the WiMax service, branded as Road Runner Mobile, in bundles and requires customers to take at least one other service. That's also the strategy for Comcast, which is marketing its High-Speed 2go service in Atlanta, Portland and Salem, Ore., and Bellingham, Wash.

Time Warner Cable positioned the wireless play as extending its reach "outside the home."

"Giving our customers the convenience of mobility and the speed of 4G, Road Runner Mobile lets customers take their favorite Internet service wherever they go," Carol Hevey, executive vice president of Time Warner Cable's Carolina region, said in a statement. "This is an important part of our strategy to give our customers any content, on any device, anytime, anywhere."

TWC expects to launch WiMax service in Dallas by the end of 2009, with two Hawaii markets -- Honolulu and Maui -- on deck for very early in 2010.

The two wireless cards the operator is providing at launch in North Carolina are the Motorola USBw100 USB card (WiMax-only) and the Franklin Wireless CMU-300 USB card (dual 3G/WiMax). TWC spokesman Justin Venech added that the operator will be offering more options down the road.

In addition, the operator said it plans to provide additional mobile features for customers in the future, such as the ability to program a DVR from a mobile device and the ability to take their video content with them on the go.

TWC is offering three plans with the WiMax service:

* Road Runner Mobile 4G National Elite ($79.95 per month for Road Runner Standard or Turbo customers) provides access to WiMax and Sprint's national 3G network;

* Road Runner Mobile 4G Elite ($49.95 per month for Road Runner Standard or Turbo customers) is an unlimited WiMax service; and

* Road Runner Mobile 4G Choice ($39.95 per month to customers of at least one other Time Warner Cable service) which is capped at 2 Gbytes of data transfers per month.

The cable company said additional discounts are available for double- and triple-play customers on the two Elite plans.

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• Who will bell the cat for WiMAX mobile devices?
  After a long period of waiting, WiMAX is now set to break out through broadband providers such as Time Warner cable and Comcast, amongst others. This is great news, as are the speeds of 6 Mbps available today. They look better than LTE rates of 50 Mbps 2 years down the line. Looks like customers may start to at least recognize WiMAX and what it can do for them.
  But most offerings continue to come with USB modems as the sole way to connect to the WiMAX. This is quite in contrast to other markets such as Korea where the WiMAX( WiBro) is available as an option in a large number of handsets.
  Is it a problem with the parentage with the owners such as Clearwire, Comcast and Time warner not being phone companies? What interest they would have if the phones were WiMAX capable? While it may be easy enough to accept it as a possible reason, accepting it would mean that we are not willing to look at the straight jacket world which the mobile companies have created for the customers.
  The phones not only need to be FCC approved but the mobile carriers need to support them, as well allow applications which they continue to firewall but which WiMAX will immediately permit. One of the phone companies, for example allowed the VoIP to be supported only in October this year in CTIA 2009. The 3G data revenues are very robust with most subscribers opting for internet plans.( What else can you do with iPhone for example)?
  What will happen to these data revenues if the mobiles could shortcut the 3G data plans with WiMAX data plans? And provide slabs for data plans which fit the bill for mobile phones ? And provide capabilities of roaming in a year from now?
  The results need not be spelt out. It is a no brainer that such a thing will not be liked at all. The WiMAX companies could still make it to the phones were it not for the strict control on phones which carriers manage. There are no other markets in the world where handsets are so closely controlled by the carriers. Operators not only try to control the handset types but link to the operating software. While it may not be so bad as China, where mobile operators are trying to go for their own OS, the results are the same as the case of iPhone linked to a carrier has shown. How many dual SIM CDMA/GSM handsets we have? None.
  There is still time for WiMAXers to get to handsets if FCC helps. It seems to be very keen on net neutrality but the same does not seem to extend far enough to make sure that any handset may be used in any network. Or that WiMAX operators should be allowed to offer their service through handsets?
  Instead two major operators are rushing headlong into HSPA+ with 14 Mbps data rates and LTE, for once this comes in the data revenues remain home. Sprint is a hope, but will it bell the cat?
  wimax-home.com

  
  Amitabh Kumar - 10/15/2009 5:54:08 AM EDT
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