Freewheel WiFi Phone Service from Cablevision – Taking "Voice as an App" to a New Level - Shelly Palmer

Earlier this week the digerati assembled at the Gramercy Park Hotel to hear a very proud James Dolan CEO of Cablevision Systems Corporation and Executive Chairman of The Madison Square Garden Company gleefully announce the launch of Cablevision39s Freewheel WiFi Phone Service The event was Cablevision39s first ever consumer product launch party and it was a great oneSome people were confused by Freewheel There was chatter after the announcement about the lack of a compelling consumer value proposition This is understandable The phone costs 9995 the service if you39re not a Cablevision customer is 2995month 995month for current customers The WiFi roaminghandoff service only works in the Cablevision footprint and there are significant technical issues the WiFi will be unreliable if you39re traveling in a car over 50 mph and you can lose a call due to contention if you39re too far from the WiFi hotspot Importantly if you39re outside the Cablevision footprint or if you manually log your phone on to any Cablevision or NonCablevision WiFi cloud it will ring when called and it works greatBut none of this is the pointThese are early days What Cablevision has created is a new awesome alternative way to get a real 10digit phone number You also get truly unlimited voicetext and data all at a pretty good price Yes it has its limitations amp8211 but that39s today You have to start somewhere and Freewheel looks like a good startFor Cablevision customers a 9995 fullfeatured Motorola Moto G running Android 44 with a 995 per month allyoucaneat plan is exceptionally inexpensive even with the limited coverage area Who would use such a plan Kids people who work in offices but don39t travel much students who have WiFi all around them all the time when you think about it the list is long and there are hundreds of excellent use casesWho won39t care about a Freewheel phone It doesn39t matter amp8211 people who need a phone number and have access to WiFi and by the way Cablevision has over 11 million WiFi hotspots in its footprint amp8211 so residents of the TriState Area will have OK service are going to consider Freewheel when considering their connectivity needs Oh and not for nothing the Moto G is one of my favorite smart devices It feels good in the hand has a 5mp camera 16 GB of storage and the battery lasts all day longVoice is an appVoice is an app It39s just that simple As you know most cablers including Cablevision offer a videovoicedata triple play and the voice in that package by definition is Voice over Internet Protocol VoIP So Freewheel is a natural extension of Cablevision39s service But it has the potential to be much much moreNot enough cell towersIf you are lucky enough to have a mobile device with a 4G LTE radio in it you know how great it is to have highspeed connectivity on the go When I got my first 4G iPad Mini March 2012 I got 25 down and 15 up going 50 mph on the FDR drive in the back seat of a car service taking me to the studio at 5am At that time there were almost no 4G devices on the network and certainly not at 5am Today standing still on 1st Avenue and 33 rd Street near the FDR drive Verizon39s speed test tells me I39m getting 5 down and 4 up on a similar 4G device Why The simple answer is network congestion There are more devices contending for available network connections than ever beforeIf you ask any of the four major carriers for a solution amp8211 the answer is always the same In a connected world with soontobe billions of connected devices we are going to need a combination of LTE XLTE 3G 2G Bluetooth Fiber Coax BPL WiFi smoke signals and carrier pigeons to fulfill our networking needsThe obvious immediate solution is WiFi With the evolution of WiFi roaming technology that allow devices like the Freewheel Moto G to quotroamquot from WiFi network to WiFi network similar to cellular telephone handoff protocols WiFi Phone services may become practical alternatives to traditional mobile phone networksWill WiFi Phone Service Replace LTE or XLTENot anytime soon But as more and more hotspots light up WiFi Phone Service will become more widespread and the use cases will increaseShouldn39t WiFi Phone Service Be An AppYes And it will be very soon There are some technical issues that need to be solved in order to create an emotionally satisfying consumer experience but they are well understood and can be dealt with I would expect an quotappquot version of Freewheel sooner than later No one except Apple wants to be in the hardware businessThe Future of FreewheelFirst let39s have a round of applause for a bold audacious outstanding first shot at a standalone WiFi Phone Service Hardware is hard software is harder and new really new is damn near impossible kudos to Cablevision for getting past the most difficult part of this journeyNext let39s think about a world with affordable unlimited bandwidth for normal everyday use cases If you live and work in a major metro market with good WiFi density and many Americans do and you have consumergrade connectivity needs mostly email and txt with a little web browsing some video and music a service like Freewheel could save you up to 1200 per year That39s real moneyAs the number of hotspots grows and as new homebased WiFi gateways begin to broadcast public signals for roaming subscribers Freewheel and services like it will start to come into their ownThis is truly the beginning of something new amp8211 phones are not the only devices that would benefit from WiFi roaming capabilities We are at the dawn of the Internet of Things IoT and WiFi is going to play a gigantic role amp8211 with Freewheel it looks like Cablevision is perfectly positioned to lead the wayShelly is the Managing Director of the Digital Media Group at LandmarkShellyPalmer a techfocused investment banking and advisory firm specializing in MampampA financings and strategic partnerships You may also know me as Fox 5 New Yorkamp8217s onair tech expert and host of Shelly Palmer Digital Living my national daily radio report Follow me shellypalmer or visit shellypalmercom for more info Read all Shelly39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Shelly Palmer ReportCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Freewheel WiFi Phone Service from Cablevision – Taking "Voice as an App" to a New Level - Shelly Palmer

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