Your TV provider may soon become your phone company, which seems only fair, because your phone company also wants to be your TV provider.
In the next few months, cable giant Comcast will start selling wireless service, just as AT&T and Verizon already do. Charter, the No 2 cable company, also has a mobile plan. Meanwhile, the largest wireless carriers 'AT&T and Verizon' have launched digital TV services.
The wireless companies are also developing a faster, more reliable version of the mobile internet that could compete with cable's broadband.
In Europe, it's increasingly common for consumers to get home internet, mobile service and TV from the same provider, and the U.S. may be heading the same way, helped along by big mergers. Wall Street analysts are already analysing potential deals, assuming that the Trump administration will be more open to big acquisitions even in industries with just a few dominant companies.
This process would spool out over several years, if it happens at all. Cable companies probably won't have much impact on the wireless business until after 2020, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a note back in September. The new wireless standard, called "5G," may also emerge widely around then.
If new services work well, it could mean more competition and lower bills for consumers. But mergers could drive prices higher. Broadband providers could also try to steer consumers to their own apps and services, disadvantaging rivals and ultimately limiting consumer choice.
AT&T's moves are pressuring Big Cable to act, says JPMorgan analyst Philip Cusick. AT&T offers DirecTV and cellphone broadband nation-wide and wants to buy Time Warner, the owner of CNN, HBO, TBS and Warner Bros.
Its new mobile-focused online-cable equivalent, DirecTV Now, could steal cable customers if the bugs get worked out. And AT&T promotes DirecTV Now by exempting it from its wireless data caps. That makes it cheaper for a consumer than a rival service.
Other phone companies also see video as a way to make more money. T-Mobile hopes to attract more customers with unlimited data plans, which allow endless amounts of (degraded to DVD-level quality) video watching. That could also work as a cable substitute for customers who don't mind TV on a small screen. And Verizon promotes its own, relatively unknown video app, go90, by exempting it from its mobile data caps.
Regular cable service, of course, is far from dead. Comcast reported growth in cable subscribers in 2016, the first annual gain in a decade, mostly because fewer customers are leaving. Its service bundles can be cheaper than paying Comcast for internet and getting TV elsewhere, and less expensive "skinny bundles" with fewer channels appeal to customers turned off by cable's expense.
The rush of election-related ads on NBC, which Comcast owns, also boosted results. Fourth-quarter net income rose 16.5 percent to $2.3 billion, and revenue grew 9.2 percent to $21.03 billion.
But Comcast is also pushing into wireless because phone video is increasingly popular and people spend a lot of time on mobile devices.
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