有线电视运营商正开始通过提供家庭电话服务来□食电信巨头的领地。现在，它们还想从电话公司为数不多的高增长服务领域之一的无线服务领域分得一杯羹。

据熟悉内情人士透露，美国最大的有线电视服务运营商们目前正在讨论组建一家合资公司，以提供移动电话服务。该非正式财团的成员包括康卡斯特(Comcast Corp. CMCSK, CMCSA)、时代华纳公司下的有线电视业务部门(Time Warner Cable)旗、Cox Communications Inc. (COX)、Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR)以及Advance/Newhouse Communications Inc等。

该项联盟将进一步加剧有线电视运营商和电话公司之间业已激烈的竞争。目前双方都在使用新技术以侵入对方领地。

目前电话公司和有线电视运营商均缺乏一项关键的服务：电话公司无法提供视频服务，而有线电视运营商则不能提供移动电话服务。为了克服这一不足，电话公司已经与直播电视集团(DirecTV Group Inc., DTV)等卫星电视服务商结成联盟，并正计划组建光纤网络，以为客户提供视频服务。

虽然金额达500亿美元的有线电视行业很早就开始讨论提供移动电话服务的问题，但组建合资公司来推行这项计划的讨论只到最近才开始升温。目前，这些公司正在约见投资银行，以为该项交易物色潜在的投行顾问。

选择之一便是直接购买一家现成的移动电话运营商。但更加可能的选择则是使用一家无线业务运营商的现有网络，但使用单独的名称进行再销售。

导致有线电视运营商涉足无线领域的一个最主要的原因在于，通讯和互联网业务的很大一部分正在向移动方向发展。

与移动电话运营商达成交易还可以使有线电视运营商向顾客提供一项额外服务：无线数据。Verizon Wireless (VRZ.XX)和斯普林特公司(Sprint Corp., FON)正准备推出3G服务，该项服务最终将可实现通过手机网络来进行无线上网，其上网速度可与宽带相媲美。这实际上将使有线电视公司可在任何地方提供宽带服务，而不再需要依赖其有线电视网络。

如果有线电视运营商希望对无线服务进行再销售的话，美国第三大移动电话运营商斯普林特公司(Sprint Corp., FON)将最有可能成为它们的合作伙伴。斯普林特公司目前已经与美国电话电报公司(AT&T Corp., T)和Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q)等达成了批发协议，并允许这些公司用它们自己的品牌通过斯普林特的无线网络来推广移动电话服务。

斯普林特公司发言人Scott Stoffel称，该公司正在与大多数有线电视运营商进行接洽，以向它们提供各种服务，包括互联网语音传输服务及无线服务等。

一些有线电视运营商认为，组建合资公司较各自分别达成交易的好处在于，通过大批量购买，它们可以得到更低的价格。另外，建立计费系统、购买手机和市场营销的费用都将有所降低。

该项交易的风险在于，如果美国无线服务行业的整合持续进行下去的话，合作方斯普林特公司或Nextel Communications Inc. (NXTL) 有可能被另一家更大的电话公司收购，这将使交易陷入危险。

各个有线电视运营商独自购买一家现成的全国性无线业务运营商的另一个问题在于，有线电视公司都是地区性公司，业务往往集中在某些城市或州，而在其他地区则完全没有业务。 一名熟悉内情人士称，如果康卡斯特公司购入一家无线业务运营商，由于它在美国许多地区没有有线电视业务，它将无法在这些地区开展捆绑业务，从而将失去经济规模。而一项重新销售协议则可使得有线电视公司向其顾客提供全国性无线服务，而无需拥有自己的全国性网络。

来源: 华尔街日报

Cable Titans Discuss Offering Cellular Services
Intensifying Foray Into Telecom's Turf

By JESSE DRUCKER, DENNIS K. BERMAN and PETER GRANT
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 8, 2004; Page B1

Cable companies are beginning to eat into the bread-and-butter of the telecommunications giants by offering home phone service. Now, they want a piece of the phone industry's few high-growth offerings: wireless.

The nation's biggest cable providers are discussing the formation of a joint venture to offer cellphone service, according to people familiar with the talks. The members of the informal consortium include Comcast Corp., Time Warner Inc.'s cable division, Cox Communications Inc., Charter Communications Inc. and Advance/Newhouse Communications Inc.

Such an alliance would further intensify the already heated competition between cable operators and telephone companies, who are using new technologies to invade each other's turf.

Both sides in the war between telephone and cable operators lack one key offering: telephone companies can't offer video services, and cable companies don't provide cellular services. To combat those deficits, telephone companies have formed partnerships with satellite television providers such as DirecTV Group Inc. and are planning to build fiber-optic networks to bring video to customers.

Although the $50 billion cable industry long has discussed providing cellphone service, discussions about forming a joint venture to carry out those plans have heated up in recent weeks, and the companies are interviewing investment banks to act as potential advisers for a deal.

One option would be an outright purchase of an existing cellular operator. More likely, however, would be to use the cellular network of an established wireless provider, but resell it under a separate brand name. Such an arrangement already is used by several carriers, including Virgin Mobile USA LLC, which has two million cellular customers, using the wireless network of Sprint PCS.

Either way, such a deal would allow cable operators to offer a full bundle of services -- including video, high-speed Internet access, landline telephone and cellular service -- to the country's 74 million cable subscribers. The theory is that customers getting all their services from one provider -- on a single bill, at a discount -- are less likely to defect from any one of those services. The success of this approach still is uncertain: a mere 1% of consumers use a single provider to get local telephone, long distance, Internet access and cellphone service, according to a recent survey by J.D. Power & Associates.

The most compelling reason for cable to move into wireless is that so much of communications and the Internet is going mobile.

Striking a deal with a cellular provider would enable cable companies to offer one more option to customers: wireless data. Carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Corp. are rolling out so-called 3G, or third-generation, offerings that eventually will allow wireless Internet access over cellphone networks, at speeds comparable to wired broadband connections. That would allow cable companies to offer broadband virtually anywhere, instead of relying on their cable connection.

Cable companies also envision offering a wide range of new cellphone applications by integrating the service with other broadband offerings. For example, they believe cellphones in the future will be able to beam photos and e-mail messages directly to televisions. Also, some cable companies are hoping to combine cellphones and landline services so that the same phone -- and phone number -- could be used both in and out of the home. Comcast, which sold its cellphone company to SBC Communications Inc. in 1999, would not be interested in returning to the wireless business if all it could offer was voice, people familiar with the matter say.

Sprint, the nation's third largest cellphone operator after Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless, is the most obvious partner for the cable companies if they want to resell wireless. Sprint already has such wireless wholesale arrangements with AT&T Corp. and Qwest Communications InternationalInc., allowing those companies to sell cellular service under their brand names but over Sprint's wireless network.

Sprint has made no secret of its interest in striking similar deals with cable operators. Indeed, in the past year, Sprint has helped Time Warner Cable, Charter and Mediacom Communications Corp. to offer traditional phone service. Sprint has one cellular marketing deal with a tiny cable operator called Sunflower Broadband.

Sprint also is interested in eventually striking agreements with cable operators that would allow its cellphones to make calls over the Internet, via the technology known as Wi-Fi, when in the range of a high-speed cable modem connection.

"We're in discussions with most of the cable companies to provide a variety of services, including things like voice over [Internet protocol] and wireless service," said Sprint spokesman Scott Stoffel.

While the big cable operators offer telephone service under their own brands, it is unclear if they would create a new, national brand to market cellular service.

Cox, which has been perhaps the country's most aggressive cable operator at offering telephone service with 1.2 million telephone customers, recently solicited a proposal from Sprint to offer cellular service using Sprint's wireless network, according to people familiar with those talks.

Some cable operators believe a joint venture would give them advantages over cutting their own separate deals: by buying in bulk, they could get a lower per-minute rate. It also would mean lower costs for setting up billing systems, purchasing handsets and marketing.

There is a considerable risk to such a wholesale deal: if consolidation in the U.S. wireless industry continues, a cellular partner such as Sprint or Nextel Communications Inc. could be purchased by a bigger telephone company such as Verizon Communications Inc., which would clearly put the cable arrangements in jeopardy.

An outright purchase of a national wireless business presents other problems for individual cable operators: Cable companies are local businesses, concentrated in certain cities and states while completely absent from others. Were Comcast, for instance, to buy a wireless business, it would be left with vast parts of the country where it had no cable-TV offering with which to bundle. "You lose the economies of scale," says one person familiar with the matter. A resale agreement, on the other hand, could allow cable companies to offer their customers national wireless coverage without supporting their own national infrastructure.

Such a consortium, however, has its own potential issues. A group of cable companies backed an operation called @Home in 1995, with the mission of bringing high-speed Internet to their own customers. Squabbles among the partners, coupled with a disastrous acquisition, pitched the company into bankruptcy protection and an eventual shutdown.

Cable companies have made other forays into the cellphone business. In 1994, Comcast, Cox and Tele-Communications Inc. joined Sprint in forming Sprint PCS, with the cable companies owning a 60% stake. Sprint agreed to buy out its cable partners in 1998.

Write to Jesse Drucker at jesse.drucker@wsj.com, Dennis K. Berman at dennis.berman@wsj.com and Peter Grant at peter.grant@wsj.com