Announcing solid quarterly earnings, Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) said it will launch wireless broadband service in its first two markets, Charlotte and Dallas, this fall. The cableco, which was spun off from its parent company earlier this year, will offer its new wireless service, which runs over the Clearwire WiMAX network, in four cities by year’s end, said president and CEO Glenn Britt in the company’s earnings call.
TWC is one of three cable-company investors in Clearwire, a joint venture with Sprint Nextel (S) that plans to build a nationwide WiMAX service to offer customers broadband service. The others are Comcast (CMCSA) – which has launched its “High Speed 2Go” service in Portland and Atlanta, and Bright House Networks.
The cablecos see wireless broadband as a way to move more fully into converged Web services, as subscribers to basic cable begin to dwindle. The nation's second-largest cable operator, TWC, lost 57,000 net subscribers in the quarter that ended June 30 – a number somewhat balanced by new subscribers to the company’s bundled Internet, digital video and voice services. Overall, the company has 14.7 million total customers and revenues of $4.47 billion.
TWC shares, which have lost 40 percent of their value this year, were up 1.8 percent in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
