No they’re not going to do that

Wandering around CTIA (now a couple weeks back), I ran into some of the cable guys. Director of Wireless Services. Talking about how they were going to do an MVNO and offer their cable subscribers wireless. It’s going to be great you know.

Many wireless subscribers are on the cheapo plan and the sheer cost of servicing (billing, customer support, credit risk) these customers make them unattractive to the wireless operator. The operator is thus happy for them to go to the MSO (cable dude).

My friend went on and on with all kinds of stats. Bla bla bla. I stopped him and asked a simple question, "where am I going to go buy this service?".  He stopped and started with some elaborate fulfillment program they were going to offer and ended with the inevitable, "and Best Buy is interested."

My response. So what. He missed one stat, most consumers buy their wireless service from a retail branded storefront of the operator. Where did you buy your own phone? You may have seen an ad, got a flyer, looked at the website, but ultimately you and I puttered down to our local operator’s storefront and got what we wanted.

Why? Because we know we can walk in, talk with someone who actually understands what we want/need and can walk out with the service working and everything in good shape.

Unless Comcast is readying to open "Comcast Stores" in places I can find, I’m not sure this strategy is going to be huge success. Someone please buy Sprint and put them out of their misery.