Convention Buzz: Strong Results and WiMax
The Cable Show opened on Sunday in New Orleans. I've been to around 30 of these annual events and the mood of the industry is usually quite clear. Coming off a string of very strong Q1 results by all reporting companies, the mood is good. We reported last Thursday record increases in basic, broadband and phone customers. We had a great quarter, adding over 15,000 basic customers and increasing our revenue by 17% and operating income (the financial guys call it OIBTDA) by 22%.
So, here in New Orleans, there's a sense of optimism
as cable guys successfully confront competition and settle in to their day-to-day battle for customers in each of their businesses. For more on this topic, check out my post on cable competition.
My ears perked up at the opening general session as Comcast's CEO Brian Roberts talked about the Clearwire WiMax joint venture that Comcast, Time Warner and Brighthouse are investing in along with Sprint, Clearwire, and Intel and Google. The idea is to build out a world class, high-speed wireless product so customers will be able to travel around the neighborhood and the country enjoying seamless connections.
Don't expect wireless to replace a wired connection as the really high speed capabilities inherent in the next generation of cable modems will be capable of delivering speeds in the triple digits. But the wireless JV, which is expected to be offered to other cable operators like us to make it available to their customers thus making the service universally available.
As Internet applications solve more and more consumer demands, and they become bigger and bigger users of bandwidth, cable operators are planning to offer this wireless option so their customers can have a "to-go" version of their favorite broadband-delivered products. People close to the planning expect the roll-out to commence in the largest metropolitan areas next year and continue over the next 3 to 5 years.
At that same session, NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow humbled me during his convention-opening speech with a shout-out for this blog. Thanks Kyle!
DOCSIS 3.0 with 4 channels bonded with a max downstream around 170 Mbit/s
Pretty darn fast!!
Can't wait to get my SURFboard 6101..
Posted by: Dave Wallace II | May 20, 2008 at 03:01 PM