Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) said late Wednesday that it is beginning to build
a WiFi network in Austin, Texas – a move that could help it compete next year
with new market entrant Google Fiber (Nasdaq: GOOG).
In addition to offering cable modem customers free Wi-Fi, Time Warner Cable
said it'll offer prepaid access to non-subscribers for $2.95 per hour, the same
price it charges customers on a WiFi network it built last summer in Charlotte,
N.C. The company is marketing its WiFi service in Austin with the TWC WiFi
brand.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ruckus Wireless is supplying Time Warner Cable with
gear for the WiFi rollout in Austin, spokesman Bobby Amirshahi told
FierceCable. Time Warner said it has already built a "limited number of
hotspots" in popular locations in the city, and that it would turn on "hundreds
more" this year.
The move comes about two weeks after Google announced that it will launch
Google Fiber in Austin by the middle of 2014. Google will offer download speeds
of up to 1 gigabit per second. In addition, it will offer a subscription video
service that comes with a DVR containing eight tuners, 2 terabytes of storage
and a Nexus 7 tablet that is used as a remote control.
Time Warner Cable, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) and other
MSOs have used WiFi deployments partly as a subscriber retention tool. While
cable operators offer free WiFi access to existing broadband customers, Google
Fiber plans to offer a free 5 Mbps service to any resident in Austin and other
cities as long as they pay an installation fee.
Austin is the fourth market where Time Warner Cable has built WiFi hotspots. In
September 2011, the MSO announced that it would spend $15 million on a WiFi
network in Southern California. Canadian WiFi vendor BelAir Networks, which was
acquired last year by Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), supplied it with WiFi access
points in California.
Last summer, Time Warner Cable announced that it would spend $2 million to
build a WiFi network in Charlotte, ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Ruckus Wireless built the Charlotte WiFi network.
Time Warner Cable also has a WiFi roaming deal with Comcast, Cablevision Bright
House Networks and Cox Communications that lets cable modem subscribers access
about 100,000 WiFi hotspots that use the CableWiFi network ID.
COO Rob Marcus told analysts in January that Time Warner would double its
investments this year in WiFi, and that it would concentrate much of the WiFi
rollout in New York, where it competes with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and RCN. The MSO
is scheduled to report first quarter earnings Thursday morning.
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