It’s been awhile since DISH CEO Charles Ergen began accumulating spectrum to augment his ability to provide robust programming to subscribers via mobile broadband. Last week, I noted that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was, more or less kind of, leapfrogging Charlie and putting the strategic idea together by absorbing DirecTV. And, on the cheaper side of the immediate future, major cable MSO/ISPs Comcast, Charter (presumably with the Time Warner Cable and Bright House acquisitions), Cablevision, Cox and others already provide Internet access via Wi-Fi hotspots everywhere (and all together) and are moving to use almost any set-top box (or dongle or device) via the cloud. (Charter’s Thomas Rutledge was a mover behind the remote DVR at Cablevision.) Also at the end of last week, Investor’s Business Daily reported that Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan was predicting that Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile would, one way or another, find a way to partner a la AT&T/DirecTV, too.
Will There Be a New Media Distribution Consensus?
