Cable MVNO Speeds Take Off With Wi-Fi

Customers of the two biggest cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) in the U.S.—Charter’s Spectrum Mobile and Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile—are both enjoying an impressive upward trajectory in their overall network performance. In their respective service areas over the past two years, Spectrum Mobile and Xfinity Mobile users’ download speeds increased by more than 100 Mbps. The performance lift is largely thanks to Wi-Fi offloading capabilities through Spectrum Mobile’s Speed Boost and Xfinity Mobile’s PowerBoost. Charter began augmenting speeds for its Spectrum Mobile customers leveraging their home Charter Wi-Fi in spring 2022 and, in the fall the same year offered speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). Likewise, Comcast was aggressive in tapping into its installed base of customer hotspots, and in 2023, Charter and Comcast offered their combined footprints to each other’s MVNO customers. That is, Charter’s Spectrum Mobile customers have access to the network of Comcast Wi-Fi hotspots within the Comcast service area – and visa-versa for Xfinity Mobile customers in the Charter service area.