Charter’s CEO says T-Mobile partnership opens the door for business wireless sales

“We're excited about the deal that we announced with T-Mobile,” Winfrey said. “We're looking forward to getting to market and to small, medium and for us, large business space with the ability to enter into a market selling many more lines than we've been able to sell the ability to combine those mobile products with already our market and price leading wireline services that we have in small, medium and large businesses, I think, is attractive the same way it is for residential.”

He added that since Charter has “been somewhat limited in terms of our ability to go to market in the business space, this opens the door for us to do that.”

Scaling business wireless

For Charter, the T-Mobile deal is all about scale and the optimal way to achieve that is through partnerships.

Through their mobile businesses, Comcast and Charter have collectively grown to more than 18 million residential and business mobile lines since they introduced their services in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Having already built a growing wireless customer base in its residential and small business segment through its relationship with Verizon Wireless, one that had over 10 million customers as of the end of the second quarter, Charter sees potential to advance further in the broader business market it serves.

During the second quarter, Charter added 500,000 mobile lines. On the business services side, Charter added 21,000 new small business wireless customers in the quarter.

Jessica Fischer, CFO of Charter, said that the increase in mobile lines was “offset by a lower year-over-year churn rate on a larger line base.”

Through its relationship with T-Mobile, which allows it to use the wireless operator's 5G network, Charter will start delivering mobile services to business customers beginning in 2026. Fellow cable operator Comcast is also leveraging the same relationship with T-Mobile for its business customer base.

Charter’s wireless partnership will leverage T-Mobile's mobile network through a long-term Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) relationship. The MVNO will expand Charter’s ability to deliver wireline and wireless offerings. Mobile services will be offered by Charter under the Spectrum Mobile for Business brand.

Winfrey said, “The mobile business is now becoming a real tailwind to our free cash flow growth, and it will continue to increase.”

Medium and large businesses boost

From an overall business services revenue perspective, Charter reported that commercial revenue grew by 0.8% year-over-year.

However, the cable MSO’s commercial results were mixed.

Small business revenue declined by 0.6%, reflecting a decline in small business customers with revenue per customer remaining essentially flat year-over-year.

The service provider saw a boost in the mid-market and large business segments.

“With mid-market and large business revenue, formerly Spectrum Enterprise growth of 2.9% and when excluding all wholesale revenue, mid-market and large business revenue grew by 3.5%,” Fischer said.

For related articles, visit the Business Topic Center.
For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.
To stay abreast of fiber network deployments, subscribe to Lightwave’s Service Providers and Datacom/Data Center newsletters.