BTIG Analyst: 'Wi-Fi-first' mobile model likely won't be a big hit with US cable companies

Will Comcast, Cablevision, Google and other companies take a "Wi-Fi first" approach to compete with traditional wireless carriers on a large scale across the US? Probably not, according to BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk. Some companies are taking more of a liking to using Wi-Fi as the primary means of connectivity and falling back to cellular only when Wi-Fi is not available. Some, like Cablevision's Freewheel service, rely solely on Wi-Fi. Google's forthcoming mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) will reportedly flit between Wi-Fi networks and the networks of Sprint and T-Mobile, depending on which one provides the best signal.

The Wi-Fi-first movement "has gained a lot of proponents, but it's debatable whether cable operators can offload enough traffic to enable a viable strategy," Piecyk wrote. "We believe that American consumers have a greater expectation and willingness to consume data in broader geographic areas, largely because they have purchased data in large buckets from the beginning," Piecyk wrote. "Conversely, the European customer, which has a high mix of prepaid users, has historically had their usage metered, whether for voice or data usage. Vodafone, with its Red plans, and other operators are trying to shift customers to data buckets to stimulate higher usage, but searching for available hotspots might always be a consumer activity more common in Europe than the United States." If a Wi-Fi-first model does not satisfy the goals of Comcast or Google, Piecyk wrote, "an acquisition of T-Mobile or Sprint might be an alternative solution."