Former Verizon exec Marni Walden has been named the new board chair of Globetouch, a connectivity company focused on the connected car and Internet of Things market.  

In that role, Walden will help to guide the Globetouch team, including its recently named CEO Alfredo de Cárdenas. Arun Sarin, the previous board chair, will remain a board member for Globetouch.  

Globetouch’s backers include Verizon Ventures, Hermes Growth Partners, Impact Venture Capital, Spark Telecom Ventures and Wholesale, CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, Digicel and NTT DoCoMo, 263 China, and Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. 

Walden, who played a big role in Verizon’s acquisition of AOL, most recently was Verizon’s EVP and president of Global Media. She left Verizon in February following a brief time as a strategic advisor.  

Walden is an exec who is also late of AT&T Wireless, McCaw Communications and General Cellular, and was COO and EVP of Cellco Partnership (now part of Verizon Wireless).  

“There are some prime opportunities for growth in the connectivity space right now, and Globetouch has the advantage of being positioned squarely at the center of them all,” Walden said in a statement. “It’s an exciting time to take the lead of Globetouch’s Board, at such a pivotal moment in the industry, and I look forward to helping the company fulfill its vision of driving innovation in the IoT economy.” 

Despite a handful of mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreements by companies to resell wireless service, Verizon Communications executive vice president and president of product innovation and new businesses Marni Walden said the telco has no appetite for its own quad play.

At the Citibank Internet, Media & Telecommunications conference in Las Vegas, Walden seemed to shut the door on a possible combined wireless, voice, video and data product offering. Verizon, through its 2011 purchase of wireless spectrum from cable consortium SpectrumCo, agreed to MVNO agreements with the operators as part of that deal. In the past year, Comcast and Charter have said they have exercised those MVNO rights. Comcast expects to offer a wireless product later this year.

Walden said that concept of the quad play, though popular in Europe — Liberty Global is a big proponent — makes less sense in the U.S. market.

COST SAVINGS IS KEY

Walden said that through Verizon’s customer research, what subscribers most want out of a product bundle is price discount.

“The quad play is overrated in the U.S. unless it is deeply discounted,” Walden said at the Jan. 5 gathering, adding that is something Verizon does not intend to do.

More important is the telco’s fiber network and its plans for a next generation 5G wireless offering.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said last year that the telco could start 5G trials as early as the first quarter of 2017.

5G networks could deliver blinding broadband speeds — up to 10 Gigabits per second, 10 to 100 times faster than traditional wireline data networks.

RELATED: Verizon Touts Progress on Next-Gen FTTP

The first product offering on the 5G platform will most likely be a fixed wireless offering, Walden said, which could take the form of a connected home product or a bundled video offering.

Other telcos have jumped into the 5G fray as well, with AT&T saying it would test a 5G service to deliver its DirecTV Now over-the-top service in Austin, Texas in the first half of the year.

The Austin trial will involve residential customers in the area. It will also include other unspecified next-generation entertainment services and devices and is expected to enhance AT&T’s understanding of the technology. That also includes how the fixed wireless technology handles heavy video traffic, according to a company statement. Some DirecTV Now customers have complained of spotty service after its November launch.

The excitement over 5G is widespread: Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge mentioned its potential to deliver speeds of 10 Gbps for cable over hybrid wireless wireline networks in a conference last year. But the service isn’t expected to reach full commercial deployment until 2018 or 2019.

“We’re not waiting until the final standards are set to lay the foundation for our evolution to 5G. We’re executing now,” AT&T chief strategy officer and group president, Technology and Operations John Donovan said in a statement.

Charter Communications hasn’t said specifically when it would begin to offer a service based on the MVNO agreement — Rutledge had said it could come in 2017 or 2018. But the Charter CEO said at the Citi conference last week that he’s confident the cable company can compete, adding that he believes Charter can squeeze 10 Gbps speeds out of its existing coaxial network.

“We’re not only developing coaxial 10 Gbps symmetrical services, but we’re developing new platforms inside the fiber optic network that ensure the backhaul capacity is there to match the coax,” Rutledge said at the Citi conference. “We think we have the best network to build the next generation of wireless services.”

MORE YAHOO SKEPTICISM

Walden also cast some doubt on the future of the Yahoo deal. Yahoo revealed in December a second data breach — this time of about 1 billion email accounts — which Verizon is currently investigating.

Walden said the fundamental reason for the merger still exists — to build scale.

“This is really about taking the audience from hundreds of millions to the billions,” Walden said. “That still remains important to us.”

The investigation continues, she added, noting that several questions need to be answered, including whether there have been any changes to the Yahoo asset.

“With time we will have answers to those questions,” Walden said. “We will be very responsible about what we do to make sure we are getting the value out of the assets and doing the right thing for our shareholders.”

Verizon’s coming “mobile-first” subscription video service will be network-agnostic, but will “work best” on those operated by the carrier, Marni Walden, EVP and president of product innovation and new business at Verizon, said.

Walden (pictured), speaking Tuesday on conference call following Verizon’s completed acquisition of AOL, shed some light on that OTT offering, noting it will feature on-demand and some live TV when it launches later this summer.

It will run on any network, including those run by competitors, but “will work best on Verizon networks,” she said. 

Walden also confirmed that “ad-sponsored data” will be part of Verizon’s new offering, and that the carrier believes it is “well within the ability to do that” in the wake of the FCC’s new network neutrality rules.

In addition to ad-supported products, Verizon will also offer “some premium offers as we evolve the product,” she said, noting that there are no current plans to provide the service outside the U.S.

Walden said some live content will be delivered on the service via Verizon Wireless’s network using bandwidth-friendly LTE multicast techniques. Instead of delivering unicast streams to each person viewing the video, multicast will rely on a dedicated portion of LTE spectrum to deliver live video to multiple devices that are connected to an individual cell site.

Verizon has announced several content partners for the new service, including ACC Digital Network, Campus Insiders, CBS Sports, ESPN, 120 Sports and Awesomeness TV.