Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, speaking at the company’s analyst day this morning, announced that a consortium of cable companies that have aligned with Sprint Nextel to develop new mobile offerings are eyeing a bid to buy wireless spectrum.
Britt said that Time Warner Cable and its partners, including Comcast, Cox, Advanced Newhouse (and Sprint Nextel) will file a short-form registration statement with the FCC this afternoon that gives the group the rights to bid on upcoming advanced wireless spectrum auctions. Starting in June, the FCC will begin auctioning 90 megahertz of advanced wireles spectrum at 1710-1755 and 2110-2155 MHz.
The short-form registration statement allows the consortium to bid but doesn’t commit it to buying spectrum. Britt was quick to note that the partners won’t overspend on the spectrum if they move forward. “We will be very disciplined in our approach,” he said.
The cable companies’ pact with Sprint-Nextel was established to give cable operators the ability to add a wireless component to their bundled offerings. All along, the companies involved in the initiative have said they intend to not merely “staple” mobile voice service to their current triple-play packages but go beyond that and create innovative services that add unique functionality to cable’s services. Among the kinds of ideas pursued by the group is the ability to watch cable program in mobile environments, such as automobiles.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:51 AM | Print | Comments (0)
VoIP pioneer Vonage sent customers an email earlier this week offering them shares in the company’s upcoming IPO, an interesting move that has sparked a lot of press — how many companies give their mass market customers an option to get in on the ground floor of a public offering?
Now Vonage is stepping up its pitch — overnight it sent customers a voice mail message (note this is .wav file) advising them, in case they missed the emails, that they have the chance to buy Vonage stock before the company goes public.
While at first blush it seemed kind of nice (although a bit odd) that Vonage is turning to its customers as potential pre-IPO investors, this stepped-up “marketing” effort has really peaked my curiosity. Either Vonage is a financial genius by tapping into a heretofore little utilized investment source — mass market customers — or it’s struggling to gain investment prior to its IPO and is turning to an easily touched source of funds.
Or it’s pushing the financial markets envelope just for the heck of it, because it can. After all, unlike most companies that go public, Vonage has ready access to millions of customers’ email addresses and voice mail systems.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:35 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Tivo has been left for dead more than once, but the PVR pioneer keeps proving that it’s not a goner yet. The latest: Tivo has inked a pact with web video publishing company Brightcove under which Internet-enabled Tivo devices will be able to watch Brightcove-delivered videos. Brightcove will deliver to Tivo’s estimated 400K-Internet connected customers a range of programs as early as June.
Yesterday Tivo announced another new initiative, one that allows advertisers to deliver to Tivo users searchable short and long-form advertising. Called Tivo Product Watch, the new option has attracted advertisers, including General Motors, Sony Pictures, Lending Tree and Kraft Foods, encompassing 100 product brands.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:17 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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