May 2017

Maybe you've heard: Charter Communications is teaming up with Comcast. The two cable companies are working together to protect their nascent cellphone businesses from huge, national providers — such as Verizon and AT&T — by largely refraining from going after each other. Under the deal, Comcast and Charter have temporarily agreed not to take actions that could compromise each other's new offerings, such as selling mobile-phone service to consumers outside their respective cable footprints or trying to buy up existing cellphone carriers such as Sprint or T-Mobile.

Essentially, it's a deal by cable giants to shield their early investments in an industry they're just beginning to explore. But this detente, while it may seem like a small announcement, has some important implications for cellphone service, television and online media. Here's why it's such a big deal.

Stakeholders know that because small cells will have shorter range, operators will need a dense fiber network to support them. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam offered a sense of just how dense that network will need to be.

Verizon small cells and densification efforts are driving the deployment of 1700-strand fiber in Boston (MA), where the company is undertaking a major network upgrade, McAdam said. In comparison, he said, the company deployed six-strand fiber when it began deploying its FiOS landline broadband and internet service in the early 2000s. Verizon worked closely with its supplier Corning to get 1700 fiber strands in a single sheath, McAdam said, also noting that the company recently placed a $300 million order with another fiber supplier Prysmian. “The largest fiber network in the country will be wireless” and will be operated by Verizon to provide backhaul and other types of connectivity, said McAdam.