Can ‘Wi-Fi First’ Work?

Cable’s history with mobile services is full of stops, starts and outright disasters.

Now, many of the nation’s top cable operators have hitched their wagons to Wi-Fi, deploying hundreds of thousands of hotspots out on the HFC network coupled with roaming agreements, and an increasing use of in-home gateways as neighborhood hotspots.

Although Wi-Fi has traditionally been a fixed wireless technology, we’re already seeing evidence of next-gen Wi-Fi networks that can enable seamless handoffs between those hotspots, with Time Warner Cable taking the lead with its announced widespread deployment of Hotspot 2.0 technology.

As evidenced by Comcast’s TWC merger filing, Comcast has also been considering a so-called “Wi-Fi First” approach that would favor Wi-Fi over other connectivity options, namely cellular. But despite that important multiple service operator roaming partnership that remains limited to four card-carrying members (albeit large ones), Wi-Fi isn’t everywhere (yet), and there's still some doubt that it can offer mobility that is on par with cellular networks, so any notion of ubiquitous coverage still requires access to the cellular network. Cable doesn’t have one that it can call its own.