As we pointed out earlier this week, cable’s dabbling in the cellular and mobile sector – the Sprint “Pivot” partnership and Cox’s failed attempt to build its own network, among them -- has not produced stellar results. Although the potential for MVNO partnerships could offer some help on the mobile front, it’s becoming clear that cable’s going to hitch its wireless wagon to WiFi.

But that doesn’t mean cable isn’t making a decent sized buck from the cellular carriers, as several major MSOs have built tower backhaul businesses that are helping to stoke the growth of their broader commercial-focused service business.  

Time Warner Cable’s Untangled blog took a closer look at its own cellular backhaul efforts this week, showing how it's providing the “wire behind wireless." After getting that initiative off the ground in 2008, TWC currently connects close to 20,000 towers to fiber across its footprint.

“When you think about a cell tower backhaul and how we execute cell tower backhaul, we’re the underlying fiber network that carries the data, voice and even video traffic that’s coming directly from your mobile device,” Thane Storck, GVP of carrier services, at TWC, explained. “Companies like Time Warner Cable are truly the backbone of the wireless industry.”

While that has become increasingly important with 4G, those efforts will likely become amplified when carriers begin to deploy faster5G wireless networks.

As explained in the video below, TWC is using a ring-in-ring architecture for cellular backhaul, which ensures redundancy.