Comcast To Launch Its Wireless Service Next Year: Biggest Impact May Be On The Small Business Growth

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, speaking at the Goldman Sachs' Annual Communacopia Conference, said that their company has planned to offer wireless service by 2017, combining its Wi-Fi network with the Verizon Wireless totally on a wholesale business.

In the conference held on Tuesday in New York City, Roberts said that the general idea behind it is that Comcast Wireless would offer new bundle of possibilities. The Company's well planned move is most likely to help its Business unit to scale faster. The Comcast Business Unit is also the best growing cable division of the company.

Roberts also added that the Comcast has a new team of about 150 people who're all prepared for the launch of the service in the middle of 2017. Comcast has exercised its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) rights with Verizon Wireless. Using this right, the Company can lease a part of bandwidth on Verizon's network as a part of the Justice Department agreement made four years ago in which Verizon had bought about $3.6 billion in the wireless spectrum from Comcast and some other pay-TV companies.

What's in it for the users?

Comcast's present users, as well as those residing within its service areas, would be able to sign up for much larger bundles of the Comcast services, that comes with wireless service coupled with TV, broadband and present phone offerings. "We believe that there is going to be a big payback with more stickiness, reduced churn, better product purchasing and better satisfaction," Roberts said.

At the conference, Roberts also demonstrated the Netflix integrated Comcast's X1 platform. Along with having a single-button access to Netflix or the voice access using voice-enabled remote, the X1 menu additionally has Netflix movies as well as TV shows alongside the pay-TV programming. According to businessinsider.com, the feature is at present in testing and is expected to be available for X1 Comcast's users by thanks-giving.

Though there still is a lot of work that is to be done on the wireless service, Roberts was mostly transparent when was questioned about the Company's future plans. "We already have many retail locations as well as customer interaction points. We just want to do it right and do it well," Roberts stated.

Connecting a few dots from small to medium sized business perspective, Comcast business Services is clearly the company's most rapidly growing unit. While Verizon and AT&T are focusing on the bigger companies, Comcast has worked its way in the small businesses as well.

For a SMB, Comcast is like a one-stop connection provider with internet, video and phone services all bundled together. Comcast will definitely make it more appealing by adding wireless into the mix as well. According to usatoday.com, Comcast (CMCSA) shares were up by 1.1% early this Tuesday to $66.57.