The Comcast-Time Warner deal may not do anything to spur competition in broadband, but it might give consumers additional options for connecting their smartphones, tablets and laptops. In its 180-page merger filing with the FCC, Comcast(s cmsca) confirmed what we’ve suspected all along: it’s weighing using its growing footprint of wireless home gateways and outdoor hotspots to create a “Wi-Fi-first” network that could both complement and supplant the carriers’ 4G data networks.
I say both complement and supplant because such a Wi-Fi network would take enormous quantities of data traffic off traditional cellular networks, but because of the range limitations and concentration in dense populated areas, mobile data networks would need to fill the gaps in between.
Source: Getty Images / William Thomas Cain:
Comcast didn’t say whether it is considering offering such a hybrid mobile service itself or selling Wi-Fi access capacity to carriers, who could use…
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