MONTREAL – An American consortium of cable companies which have banded together to let their customers roam freely on each others’ Wi-Fi networks may soon gain a Canadian partner.
Earlier this year (as reported on by Cartt.ca from the Cable Show in Boston), a number of U.S. MSOs forged a new partnership to let their respective customers share 50,000 wireless hotspots for free when they travel. When traveling outside their home markets, high-speed Internet subscribers of the participating companies (Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House) will look for the “CableWiFi” network and through a simple sign-on process connect using the same credentials as when accessing their home providers’ WiFi networks. Users will be able to have their devices auto-connect to the Internet when located in any of the “Cable WiFi” hotspots.
During a presentation at the annual CIBC Institutional Investors’ conference being held this week in Montreal, Shaw Communications CEO Brad Shaw said he wants in, too.
“We’ve approached that consortium… and they’re very excited for us to be involved,” said Shaw (right). “We’re still early days on how things get formulated with standards and how it’s all going to fit together but we certainly see it as an opportunity.” He added that 2,500 of the company’s 5,000 planned Wi-Fi zones have been completed so far.
The hole in the Canadian arrangement for the consortium is that Shaw would be alone among big Canadian network operators to want to pursue a Wi-Fi partnership such as this. Rogers and Videotron are also wireless operators and would prefer data customers roam on their cell networks and EastLink is nearing the launch of its own wireless division, too. That would leave Cogeco, whose intentions are not known (but whose CEO, Louis Audet, is speaking at the same conference Thursday morning).
“When we look across Canada we wish there was maybe a few other cable companies doing Wi-Fi to roaming but unfortunately there’s not,” added Shaw.
– Greg O’Brien
