It’s not just cable: Comcast-Time Warner would create a Wi-Fi powerhouse

Much of the focus of Comcast’s proposed $45.2 billion deal to acquire Time Warner Cable is on the huge cable TV and broadband empire it would create. But the two companies have another network asset to play with: Wi-Fi.

Let’s dive a little deeper into what a potential Comcast-TWC deal might mean for the wireless industry. The two cable companies have already built extensive outdoor and indoor hotspots in big cities around the country, and they’ve both teamed up with fellow cable companies Cox Communications, Cablevision Systems and Bright House Networks to pool their wireless assets and create the CableWiFi grid, which has 200,000 hotspots, making it the largest Wi-Fi network in the country according to the cable providers. Comcast and Time Warner are the two biggest contributors to that network, which would instantly give them one of the largest hotspot networks in the country. But Comcast has gone one step further. It has begun using its customers’ residential broadband gateways as hotspots as well.