Time Warner Cable Plans Wi-Fi Service

GigaOm says Time Warner Cable may announce outdoor Wi-Fi service for its subscribers tomorrow: A little birdie told me that when in Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan, you now see SSIDs for the free Wi-Fi in the park, as well as Cablevision's Optimum Wi-Fi, an unannounced Comcast service, and an unannounced Time-Warner service.

Cablevision pioneered the notion of using outdoor Wi-Fi, available at no cost and only to its customers, as a retention tool. The network is used heavily, and I suspect it's got to hurt Verizon, which offers an extremely limited and stupidly configured subset of Boingo Wireless's network to its customers (Windows only, laptop only, requires special software).

Last year, it looked like Comcast might share some Wi-FI locations with Cablevision; Time Warner could easily follow suit. None of the three multiple systems operators (MSOs) compete for customers.

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