FreedomPop, the company behind a WiFi-first voice and data products, has introduced its own full-featured, low-cost phone for £59 (US$69.77) that will initially be offered in the U.K. and Spain, with plans to introduce it in the U.S. later this year.

RELATED: FreedomPop Raises Global Stakes

FreedomPop has previously relied on refurbished Android smartphones. The new device, called the V7, will give the company more control of its service, gain access to a higher-quality product, and will help FreedomPop deal with supply issues for refurbished Android devices, said FreedomPop CEO Stephen Stokols.

RELATED: Intel Capital Splashes Cash on FreedomPop, Sckipio

He said FreedomPop, which tends to operate in the lower end of the market, has run into supply problems by leaning on refurbished devices that, on occasion, has caused the company to stop promotions prematurely and created a backorder issue.

“There are only so many devices in the market,” he said, noting that FreedomPop’s issue with supply has been ongoing for about 18 months.

By going with its own smartphone, FreedomPop will also get more control of the service and the overall experience, which uses a WiFi-first model that falls back on cellular networks through MVNO deals with carriers, Stokols said.

FreedomPop isn’t naming its initial supplier for the V7, but the company could eventually work with multiple OEM partners, he said.

While acknowledging that FreedomPop doesn’t need the volumes of a company like Samsung, the aim is to take on partners that can produce in the volumes it needs, “and ramp up with us," Stokols said. 

FreedomPop doesn’t disclose exact customer figures, but is approaching 2 million worldwide, according to Stokols. 

Stokols said FreedomPop expects to introduce the V7 to U.S. customers by sometime in the next quarter.

The FreedomPop V7 includes a free FreedomPop SIM that supports free voice, text and data included, as well as free WhatsApp usage. Customers who want more than the basic free plan can either upgrade to a paid FreedomPop plan, use a different SIM, or both, because the phone is dual SIM device.

The phone itself runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, features a five-inch IPS scree and 13 megapixel camera, and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor. It has 8 gigabytes of internal memory and can support 32 GB micros SD card.

Following Altice’s acquisition of Cablevision Systems in June, it was abundantly clear that the days of Freewheel, the WiFi-only phone service launched by Cablevision in early 2015, were numbered.

RELATED: Cablevision Gets Rolling With ‘Freewheel’

The phase-out was well underway in July, when Altice halted sales of Freewheel, though existing customers, who were paying $9.95 per month if they were taking the MSO’s high-speed Internet service or $29.95 per month if they were not, could continue to use the service. Left open was how long Altice intended to support the service for those legacy subs.

RELATED: Altice Halts Freewheel Sales 

Now we know…the show’s pretty much over.

According to the updated FAQ for Freewheel, the service will be discontinued at the start of the December bill cycle for current customers on the service. International calling services for Freewheel ended at the end of their November bill cycle.

Cablevision and Altice never announced how many customers subscribed to Freewheel, but Altice said those who are still using it have been alerted to the shut-down timing.

But getting Freewheel off the ops will help Altice get on to bigger and better things, including its ambitious plan to upgrade all its Optimum (former Cablevision) properties and most of its Suddenlink footprint to fiber-to-the-premises over the next five years.

RELATED: Altice USA In a ‘Unique Spot’ For FTTP Upgrade

And, for what it’s worth, the shut-down will also eliminate any confusion with FreeWheel, the online ad-tech firm now owned by Comcast.

If “WiFi-first” strategies become a central piece of cable operators’ wireless and mobile game plans, a new, more advanced version of the technology may help to lead the way in the years to come.

The innovation, called WiGig or 802.11ad, is the follow-up to 802.11ac, and promises to support up to 8 Gigabits per second over shorter ranges, while also living in the 60-Gigahertz region — sometimes referred to as “millimeter wave” — that will play a role in the coming 5G platform.

Those high-performance capabilities, along with enabling less congestion than 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz WiFi technology, hit on several potential use cases that could serve cable operators and other service providers.

SUPPORTS 4K STREAMING

On the pure capacity side, WiGig will provide more fuel for 4K video streaming, the transferring and synching of massive files. It will also support apps that require extremely low latencies, including virtual reality and 360-degree video. Today’s higher-end VR platforms, such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, require users to connect their headsets to PCs or gaming consoles with cables. A WiGig-connected VR platform will aim to do the job wirelessly and push the industry toward standalone headsets.

WiGig appears to be ready for its closeup. The Wi-Fi Alliance, which runs an interoperability certification program, said it has given the green light to a WiGig-equipped Dell laptop, the Latitude E7450/70; Intel’s Tri-Band Wireless client and reference design kits; and reference adapters from Peraso, Qualcomm and Socionext. Many other chipmakers are also in the mix, including Marvell, Broadcom and MediaTek, with TP-Link and Netgear already on board with WiGig access points.

ABI Research forecasts that 180 million WiGig chipsets will ship to the smartphone market in 2017.

Certification testing is usually viewed as an “inflection point” for most new WiFi technologies, and is expected to be the same for WiGig, Kevin Robinson, vice president of marketing at the Wi-Fi Alliance, said. WiFi now enjoys an installed base of about 8 billion devices, he noted.

MANY USES FOR CABLE

Robinson sees WiGig playing an important role in cable strategies going forward — in and out of the home.

In the home, he said he expects WiGig to come to cable modem gateways that support a growing mix of laptops, tablets, streaming devices and gaming consoles and IoT devices that connect to the home network. The capacity gains from WiGig will also help to eliminate potential bottlenecks because performance will be more in line with DOCSIS 3.1, the new multi-Gigabit data platform for hybrid fiber coax networks.

Akin to strategies being pursued by companies such as Google Fiber, Robinson also expects cable operators to consider using WiGig as a point-to-point “fiber replacement” to connect to homes where extending traditional wirelines is either difficult or just expensive. In metro deployments, WiGig could be used to create bandwidthrich small cells that provide generous throughputs for individual users who are trying to connect, he said.

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.” That was the warning given by Geena Davis’ character in David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly, as she beheld the horror of Jeff Goldblum’s hybrid man-insect ‘Brundlefly.’

It is also the advice being offered to incumbent U.S. mobile carriers by many within the analyst community as Comcast prepares to unleash a hybrid beast of its own. Word that the cable giant has appointed a lead for its newly hatched mobile division indicates it is readying the launch of a full breadth connectivity play, having last year activated its MVNO agreement with Verizon. The industry is buzzing with anticipation.

Related:Comcast Shakes Up Tech, Operations Ranks

Sci-Fi tales of hybrids are often cautionary, used to project the message that fundamental laws of nature should not be disrupted by meddling boundary pushers. Mobile carriers probably feel the same way about the laws of the industry: Mobile service should be left to the mobile specialists because it was ever thus.

But the hybrids in these stories almost always start out showing great promise. Before teeth, fingernails and other key appendages began dropping off Seth Brundle, the character enjoyed a host of enhancements, most notably huge boosts in strength, agility and appeal. So while there is caution in the conclusion, the prospect of success is enticing and ever-present.

There is certainly strength and appeal in the theory many industry observers believe will be at the heart Comcast’s proposition:; a blend of cellular and WiFi conceived to harness the complementary powers in each technology’s DNA. Cellular connectivity will serve consumers who are on the move and outdoors, and WiFi in places where they like to feast on rich content.

Rather than a ‘WiFi First’ play, what Comcast could well be readying is something which puts connectivity first, delivering service based on the customer’s circumstances at the point of demand, and not on a partisan attitude to either underlying bearer.

As always, timing is everything. Research published in July by Parks Associates suggests U.S. mobile carriers are shifting their focus from ARPU growth to churn management as new smartphone users become increasingly hard to find. And among the top priorities of smartphone users who consider themselves likely to churn within the next 12 months, according to a Parks survey, is a WiFi element to the mobile service.

Two thirds of likely churners ranked managed access to WiFi as "very important" to their decision, positioning WiFi (in the context of the survey) as a more compelling piece of the proposition than a loyalty rewards program, the chance of an early handset upgrade or a long contract to offset upfront costs. WiFi was ranked equally attractive as the ability to roll over unused mobile data allowance.

Meanwhile, data published recently by Nielsen shows the number of U.S. consumers watching video on smartphones in Q1 this year was more than 110 million, a 29% year-on-year increase. These users racked up a total of almost 11,000 years of video consumption; a 67% increase on Q1 2015. More people are watching more video on their smartphones, and the growth is far from over.

With this kind of demand, WiFi is crucial to any service that aims to provide comprehensive smartphone connectivity. Google’s Project Fi, another heavyweight hybrid threatening to disrupt the U.S. mobile status quo, has been conceived along very similar lines. For both Comcast and Google — unlike the mobile carriers — connectivity itself is not the product. They simply want end users to be better able to consume content, wherever they go: How consumers do that is far less important than the fact that they can.

The fly in the ointment for Comcast is that its WiFi network is heavily (though not exclusively) dependent on domestic locations; "homespots," which will see very little traffic beyond that generated by the residents themselves.

Project Fi, on the other hand, brings public WiFi into the mix, offering the same capacity benefits to data-hungry, cost-conscious consumers where they need it when they’re out and about.

In this way the Fi approach is closer to that taken by the world’s largest international cable company, Liberty Global. Earlier this year Liberty became the first tier - service provider to build freely shared public WiFi into its service across its entire European MVNO footprint, a powerful complement to its existing domestic WiFi and cellular connectivity proposition.

Shared public WiFi also offers mobile carriers an easy route to hybrid service, and it looks likely that, as LTE networks begin to encounter the congestion and performance issues that blighted 3G, those carriers’ own interest in WiFi as a strategic connectivity asset may be on the increase.

Consumers want high quality smartphone connectivity everywhere they go — and studies such as the one from Parks Associates mentioned above suggest that the winners in this service provider tussle will be the players that combine the best of everything available into a single, unified connectivity service.

Well executed hybrids are the future of the industry. Everything else will be swatted aside.

Dave Fraser is CEO of Devicescape, a developer of wireless networking software.

Comcast reinforced its commitment to a wireless product last week after naming longtime executive Greg Butz to head up its new Comcast Mobile division, a unit that could be the next step in the cable company’s journey toward offering customers full mobility.

The move, part of broader changes including the departure of chief network officer John Schanz and cable division chief financial officer Cathy Avgiris (see sidebar), comes about eight months after Comcast notified Verizon Communications last October of its intention to activate its Mobile Virtual Network Operator agreement with the carrier.

The MVNO agreement, part of the deal by SpectrumCo (a consortium of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks) to sell its wireless licenses to Verizon for $3.9 billion in 2012, would essentially allow Comcast to resell Verizon wireless service under its own brand name, a dramatic change from its past endeavors in the wireless business.

Comcast has been part of wireless partnerships that all went bust: Sprint PCS and Pivot with Sprint; and one with WiMax pioneer Clear-wire. An MVNO would allow Comcast to resell a reliable service with lower upfront costs.

Selecting Butz to head up the group was no accident. As executive VP of sales and marketing, Butz has been a key part of Comcast’s sales success, and past wireless endeavors have lacked a strong marketing component, according to some people familiar with the company.

“Selling to the base is going to be critical, and Greg [Butz] knows how to sell into Comcast’s customer base,” one source said.

Butz helped create Comcast’s broadband business in the early days of high-speed data, responsible for product strategy, business strategy and marketing. He also has a cellular business background, serving stints at Comcast Cellular and Bell Atlantic Mobile.

Comcast declined to comment on the Comcast Mobile unit, but sources familiar with the company said its formation is a logical next step in what may be a slow and steady process. Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit has said publicly that the cable operator was in “test and learn” mode concerning its wireless plans, and that still appears to be the case.

“I expect Comcast to go about this pretty slow,” Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said, adding that it could be one to two years before Comcast unveils a product.

While Comcast isn’t letting on what that could be, most analysts believe a hybrid WiFi-cellular phone could be first out of the gate — a mainly WiFifirst phone that hands off to the cellular network when the customer leaves a hotspot. It could give Comcast the ever-elusive quad play of video, wireline voice, data and wireless that operators have chased for decades.

The timing is better now than in the past, Wlodarczak said, for two reasons: Wireless pricing is high and wireless usage is off the charts.

Wlodarczak said offering a service over an already reliable wireless network at a cheaper price could gain traction. However, operators would have to be careful as to how low they go.

“If you really only need the MVNO as a fill-in — the tech is not quite there yet — you could seriously squeeze the telcos using their own network,” he said. “But this is the flaw with MVNOs; at some point the deal ends.”

Expanding its attack on the traditional mobile services market, Google said it has exited the invitation-only stage for Project Fi, a service that starts at $20 per month that runs on WiFi and  falls back on Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s LTE networks when WiFi isn’t available.

Google unveiled Project Fi in April 2015, offering a service that bakes in basics such as voice, text, and WiFi tethering for $20 per month, plus $10 per gigabyte for cellular data in the U.S. and abroad.

“We launched Project Fi as an invitation-only Early Access program to make sure we could deliver the best quality of service to our first customers,” Simon Arscott, Project Fi’s project manager, announced Monday via this blog post. “Today, we’re excited to be exiting our invitation-only mode and opening up Project Fi so that people across the U.S. can now sign up for service without having to wait in-line for an invite.”

Google is broadening its mobile game as U.S. cable operators continue to mull their mobile strategies. Cablevision Systems, which is in the process of being acquired by Altice Group, offers a WiFi-only service called Freewheel; Comcast, meanwhile, is stil exploring how it might move forward with MVNO deals it has with Sprint and Verizon that could help to underpin a WiFi/cellular hybrid offering. 

Google has not announced how many people signed up for Project Fi during the ten-month invitation-only period, but to entice more to take the plunge, it’s offering the Android-powered Nexus 5X smartphone for $199 for the next month when customers buy and activate the device via Project Fi.

According to Google, more than 15% of Project Fi customers have used the service abroad, and that more than 50% of subs are connecting to public hotspots on a weekly basis using WiFi Assistant, a tool designed to automatically connect to the highest-quality connection  available.

During the first ten months of the service, Google also found that the average Project Fi customer uses 1.6 gigabytes of cellular data per month. 

G.fast chipmaker Sckipio and mobile data/voice company  FreedomPop were among the startups that are benefiting from Intel Capital's decision to invest $22 million in ten technology companies. 

Sckipio has been focused on silicon that powers modems and other gear that support G.fast, an emerging standard that brings gigabit capabilities to DSL networks. Ramat Gan, Israel-based Sckipio noted that it showed 1 Gbps running at 300 meters using G.fast technology. How much Intel Capital put into Sckipio was not released, but the startup noted that it represents its third round of funding and that it previously has raised $27 million from venture capital firms Amiti Ventures, Aviv Ventures, Genesis Partners, Gemini Israel Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital.

FreedomPop said the new strategic funding will help it to expand is smartphone lineup, noting that Intel Capital’s backing will help to fund a 2016 commercial launch of a "WiFi first" smartphone that will prefer WiFi connectivity and fallback to cellular when WiFi is not available. That device, FreedomPop said, will use Intel’s new SoFIA mobile chipset to  help users seamlessly switch to and from WiFi and cellular networks. “The smartphone will be available in multiple markets, with launch details to be announced at a later date.” FreedomPop said.

Intel made the funding announcement at the Intel Capital Global Summit in San Diego.  The VC expects to invest more than $500 million in technology companies this year, up from $359 million in 2014.

Here’s a roundup of other Intel Capital investments announced today:

-LISNR: The Cincinnati-based creator of Smart Tones, a new communication protocol that sends data over audio using a high-frequency, inaudible technology.

-what3words:  A London-based developer of an addressing platform that, it claims, allows people to find and communicate a location more accurately than GPS or postcodes.

-Body Labs: A New York-based startup that collects, digitizes and organizes all of the data and information related to human body shape, pose and motion.

-Microprogram Information:  A Taiwan-based Internet of Things startup that makes “turnkey” hardware and software solutions and backend information management services for rental bicycles, taxi fleets, and mobile point-of-sale systems.

-Perfant Technology: Beijing, China-based developer of imaging and video technologies for artificial intelligence, machine vision, 3-D reconstruction and virtual reality.

-Chargifi: London-based startup focused on the development of a wireless charging network that would span coffee shops to hotels, restaurants, offices and airports.

-KMLabs: Boulder, Colo.-based maker of  compact laser systems for research and industrial applications.

-Prieto Battery: Fort Collins, Colo.-based 3-D advanced battery provider focused on commercializing a patented Lithium-ion battery technology.

T-Mobile and Bright House Networks are teaming on a Passpoint-powered WiFi roaming trial that will tie in about 34,000 hotspots that the cable operator has deployed in Tampa and Orlando, according to T-Mobile Web pages that detail the effort.

Those documents, spotted by Fierce Wireless, note that about 50,000 customers will receive a text message asking them to opt into the trial. The test will use Passpoint on handsets to auto-connect to Bright House’s WiFi network, and only on Passpoint-enabled devices that support either WiFi Calling 1.0 or 2.0. Voice-over-LTE support isn’t required but is “strongly recommended for the best experience.” VoLTE is encouraged because it “will improve your experience by enabling call handovers between Wi-Fi and VoLTE network when on the move,” explains the trial FAQ.

Update: This is an upcoming technology trial and not a commercial relationship between T-Mobile and Bright House Networks. "Yes, we are looking to conduct a technology trial in the Tampa-Orlando, Florida market focused on Passpoint technology and access," a T-Mobile spokesperson said, in a statement. "We continue to look at ways to drive a better, more differentiated wireless experience for T-Mobile customers." 

Passpoint, also known as HotSpot 2.0, is a technology that brings cellular-like handoff and roaming capabilities to WiFi, and is sometimes viewed as enabler for MSO voice-over-WiFi services. T-Mobile is using Passpoint on some WiFi-capable handsets so its customers can connect calls, receive messages and obtain data via the carrier’s “Preferred” WiFi access points. Data used over WiFi does not count toward a T-Mobile user’s monthly data consumption bucket, the carrier said. 

When WiFi is turned on, T-Mobile explains, the Passpoint feature in the handset and Bright House’s WiFi hotpot will automatically connect customers when they are in range. “No password is required.” Passpoint-enabled devices eligible for the trial include several iPhone models, the HTC Desire, LG G5, Samsung Galaxy S5, and Sony Xperia Z3, among several others.

Time Warner Cable is using Passpoint to help underpin its roaming pact with Boingo.

Word of the T-Mobile-Bright House trial comes as cable operators expand the reach of their WiFi networks and as some consider WiFi-first mobile services that prefer WiFi connectivity and use cellular as a backup. The Cable WiFi Alliance (BHN, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications, and TWC are currently members) have deployed more than 400,000 quasi-public WiFi hotspots that are accessible to their respective high-speed Internet subscribers.  Of that group, Cablevision has launched a WiFi-only service called Freewheel.

Charter Communications, which is in the process of acquiring TWC and Bright House, has begun to deploy WiFi, under the “Spectrum WiFi” banner, and is expected to join the Cable WiFi group later this year.

Speaking Wednesday (August 5) on Charter’s second quarter earnings call, company president and CEO Tom Rutledge was asked about T-Mobile’s openness to potential cable partnerships and his interest in working with a wireless carrier.

“I think wireless is a component of our service already,” Rutledge said, referring to Charter’s WiFi rollout. “So I think there are opportunities, business opportunities, to create mobility for us whether that's with T-Mo or any other provider for that matter. I think opportunities exist there and people are trying to figure out the right business models to do that.”

Following recent deployment expansions  in areas such as its “Keystone” region, Comcast announced Monday that its WiFi network now spans more than 10 million quasi-public hotspots nationwide.

That’s up from the 8.6 million hotspots that the company said were deployed when Comcast discussed first quarter results in May.

Comcast hit the 10 million mark through a mix of deployments in outdoor venues and business services locations as well as in home-side routers (sometimes called “homespots” or neighborhood hotspots) that emit a secondary SSID signal. Comcast hasn’t shared its deployment breakdown, but the MSO is part of the “Cable WiFi” roaming consortium (Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks), which has deployed more than 400,000 hotspots that are accessible by their respective high-speed Internet subs.

“The Xfinity WiFi network continues to grow and customers are using it more than ever,” Eric Schaefer, Comcast’s senior vice president, wireless product management, noted in this blog post about the milestone. “We just surpassed 10 million hotspots nationwide and so far this year, people have used those hotpots more than 3.6 billion times, a 500 percent increase.”

Comcast said Xfinity WiFi customers connect nearly five times per day on average, with an average session length of more than 25 minutes. Comcast’s Xfinity WiFi app has been downloaded more than 3 million times.

Schaefer also listed out 10 “favorite locations” where people are using Comcast’s WiFi network to connect, including The 606 in Chicago; the boardwalks in Ocean City, N.J., and Ocean City, Md.; the McKnight Road shopping/dining corridor in Pittsburgh, Pa.; the MBTA Green Line in Boston; The Commons on Champa in Denver; and Suburban Station in Philadelphia.

Comcast has been keeping a lid on how else it might use its WiFi network, though cable operators are expected to explore so-called “WiFi-first” strategies in which devices prefer WiFi connectivity and use cellular networks as a backup.  Comcast has MVNO agreements with Verizon Wireless and Sprint that it has an option to pursue. In the meantime, Comcast already offers a voice-over-WiFi options via Voice 2go, a feature that’s built into the MSO’s Xfinity Connect app for smartphones and tablets. Comcast launched Voice 2go in 2012.

Cablevision Systems, meanwhile, has launched a WiFi-only phone service called Freewheel. 

Comcast and Cablevision have rolled out similar homespot strategies and are likewise facing similar lawsuits over the practice. 

Offering another hint about its evolving mobile voice strategy, Comcast has recently locked up a patent that describes a method and a system that supports re-establishing a dropped call or communication.

The patent (No. 9,060,258 -- “Callback tokens for dropped calls), spotted by The Donohue Report, was filed on June 4, 2013, and issued on June 16, 2015. Comcast principal engineer Ross Gilson is listed as the inventor.

“Experiencing too many dropped communications is often one of the most common customer complaints received by service providers,” the patent notes in the description of the problem it's trying to solve. “Service providers have attempted to address the complaint in various ways, including expansion of their home network coverage, increased cell capacity, and offering refunds for individual dropped calls.”

The patent goes on to describe a token-based system that’s used to re-established dropped calls using in-band or out-of-band signaling. “If the call or communication drops, the terminal possessing the token then initiates communication to the other terminals,” the patent filing explains. “In addition, a plurality of tokens may be used when there are more than two terminals in a call. The terminals may be partitioned into groups, where one of the terminals in each group possesses a token."

The patent comes to light as speculation continues to swirl about Comcast’s future mobile services strategy, and whether that will include a so-called “WiFi-first” approach that will prefer WiFi, when available, and fall back to a cellular connection when it isn’t.

Through a mix of deployments in public and business locations and in home-side routers, Comcast’s WiFi network now spans more than 8.6 million hotspots. Comcast has been using them primarily as a free perk to its cable modem subs. Comcast also has MVNO deals in place with  Sprint and Verizon Wireless, but has yet to activate them.

“We’re still working on our wireless strategy and how that will manifest itself,” Neil Smit, president and CEO of Comcast Cable, said last month on the company’s first quarter earnings call.

Google announced Wednesday that it will try to shake up the U.S. mobile industry with Project Fi, a service that starts at $20 per month and will run on pre-vetted WiFi hot spots as well as Sprint’s and T-Mobile US’s 4G LTE cellular networks. 

Taking aim at mobile services encumbered with restrictive or complicated data plans, Google said the $20 per month fee will cover basics such as talk, text, WiFi tethering and international coverage in more than 120 countries, plus a flat $10 per gigabyte for cellular data in the U.S. and abroad, or 2GB for $20, 3GB for $30 per month, and so on. Customers will also get money back each month for data they don't use. 

“Since it's hard to predict your data usage, you'll get credit for the full value of your unused data,” Nick Fox, VP of communications products at Google, explained in this blog post about the new service. “Let's say you go with 3GB for $30 and only use 1.4GB one month. You'll get $16 back, so you only pay for what you use.”

In the vein of so-called “WiFi first” strategies that are being pursued by some cable operators as well as providers such as Scratch Wireless and Republic Wireless (Cablevision Systems has launched a WiFi-only service called Freewheel), Google said Project Fi will securely auto-connect customers to open WiFi hotspots (Google said it has verified more than 1 million of them "as fast and reliable") or a partner's cellular network. Taking it a step further, Project Fi aims to connect customers to the fastest available network at a given location, whether that’s via WiFi or the Sprint or T-Mobile 4G network.

Google currently is limiting Project Fi to an invitation-only Early Access Program, and will initially offer the service on the Nexus 6, a Motorola-made device that is the first to support the service’s new WiFi/cellular handoff capabilities. 

With Cablevision Systems' launch of a WiFi-only phone service still fresh in everyone's mind, the topic of how WiFi-fueled services might fit into Comcast’s future was a hot one on the MSO’s fourth quarter earnings call Tuesday.

Comcast is keeping its future wireless plans under wraps, but executives did drop hints that the operator working on new strategies and product ideas that prefer WiFi connectivity and use cellular networks as a backup – a growing service category typically labeled as “WiFi-first.”

Comcast has already deployed about 8.3 million WiFi hotspots  -- through a mix of rollouts in public venues, business locations and in home-side gateways – and has MVNO agreements with Verizon Wireless and Sprint that it has an option to pursue.

“We’re working on how we monetize that [WiFi] asset and bring it to market,” Neil Smit, president and CEO of Comcast Cable, said on the call. “We do believe in the asset and [are] working on ways on bringing it to market in the coming months.”

He said Comcast would make further announcements on its plans “when we have the product well-defined and developed.”

While not yet offering a service akin to Cablevision’s WiFi-only Freewheel offering or a WiFi-First products such as those marketed by companies such as Scratch Wireless and Republic Wireless, Comcast has already dipped its toes in the voice-over-WiFi waters with Voice 2go, a WiFi-based calling feature that’s part of the MSO’s Xfinity Connect app for smartphones and tablets. Voice 2go, launched in 2012, lets customers make and receive calls with via the app using their own home phone number.

Smit was later pressed about whether Comcast characterizes its wireless strategy as an attractive feature or something that could evolve into a new business.

Smit said Comcast could go either way, or take both vectors. “We’re assessing the business opportunity.”

Comcast is not at a point yet that it wants to be “too open about what our wireless plans are going forward,” Michael Angelakis, Comcast vice chairman and CFO, added later. “We are working through all of those issues and technologies internally.”

Comcast appears to be hiring in areas that could push those strategies forward. As reported by The Donohue Report last week, Comcast is hiring in areas aimed at mobilizing its triple-play bundles.

On the video front, Comcast plans to remain aggressive with its rollout of X1, an IP-capable platform that features a cloud-based navigation system that has shown to have a positive impact on VOD usage while also reducing voluntary churn levels. Comcast, which added 6,000 video subs in the fourth quarter of 2014, just completed year one of a three-year plan to have X1 deployed to a majority of its video subs.  

Updating that progress, Angelakis said about half of Comcast's video connections in 2014 was for X1, adding that X1 now makes up about a quarter of Comcast’s base of triple-play customers.

Comcast’s expanded rollout of X1, its cloud DVR, wireless gateways, general infrastructure investments, its ongoing aggressiveness with business services, and the pursuit of new business lines such as Xfinity Home, will result in higher capex spending in 2015. The MSO said it expects cable capital expenditures to increase to about 14.5% of cable revenue in 2015, up from 13.9% of cable revenue in 2014.

Angelakis defended the anticipated increase, reasoning  that Comcast is focusing it on offensive areas that focus on growth and provide good returns. “Not all capex is bad capex,” he said.

The cable industry is “best positioned” to reap the benefits of voice and data services that prefer WiFi connections and use cellular networks as a backup, but it’ll likely be two or three more years before such offerings are ready for primetime, a leading industry analyst concluded in a new report that sizes up cable’s WiFi opportunities.

While Comcast, Cablevision Systems and other cable operators are rapidly deploying WiFi hotspots in metro areas while also lighting up millions of “homespots” that broadcast second SSID signals as a perk to their wireline broadband services, the industry will be in a great spot to offer so-called “WiFi-first” services, MoffettNathanson Research partner and senior analyst Craig Moffett noted in the report, issued Monday.

“The time is coming when WiFi will shift from being a ‘secondary’ network to being a primary one; instead of thinking of WiFi as an alternative to cellular where WiFi is available, we will instead being to think of cellular as a backup network needed only when WiFi is not,” he wrote, arguing that the recent launch of the iPhone 6, which supports WiFi calling, will accelerate this shift.

While the emergence of the “CableWiFi” roaming alliance between Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Cablevision and Bright House Networks (and, soon, Charter Communications) offers Internet connectivity to cable modem subs while they are away from home, Moffett envisions a “Stage II” of  a strategy that will position MSOs to offer a substitute to traditional wireless.

“The pieces are seemingly falling into place,” he wrote, noting that Adobe’s recent Mobile Benchmark Report showed that tablet users now consume 93% of all data via WiFi, and 57% of smartphone users consume 57% of their data on WiFi.

Possibly aiding any future WiFi-first strategy is the MVNO option with Verizon Wireless that’s available to Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. While acknowledging that specific terms of the MVNO arrangement aren’t public, Moffett notes that cable can realize big potential cost savings by offloading as much traffic as possible to its growing WiFi network.

In Moffett’s estimation, the objective would be for the WiFi portion of the network to handle 80% of the offload, with the balance handled by the cellular network/MVNO.

And he doesn’t believe that cable will have to blanket the country with WiFi to make the model work, citing a Cisco Systems study indicating that 90% of all wireless usage happens at retail locations, public locations and travel locations, meaning that a potentially very small number of locations could capture a very substantial amount of wireless traffic.

“The more traffic that can be handled on the WiFi network at near-zero incremental cost, the less that needs to be handed off to the MVNO partner at relatively high incremental cost,” Moffett explained. “Again, the capital spending objective of a WiFi-first operator would not be to provide broad coverage, but instead to minimize usage of the cellular networks as a way to minimize cost.”

Making some assumptions on monthly cellular/MVNO network costs ($7) and G&A expenses ($8) per sub that could be factored in before acquisition costs, Comcast, he surmised, “could achieve positive customer lifetime value” starting as low as $30 per month.

But Moffett warns that he doesn’t expect such a model to take hold anytime soon. “[T]here are technological hurdles that will require at least two to three more years before a Cable WiFi service is ready for primetime,” he wrote, citing the need for more seamless login processes, the addressing of security concerns, and improved connection managers.

However, the emergence of Hotspot 2.0/Passpoint, a technology already being deployed by Time Warner Cable, will provide some answers, and provide carrier-grade WiFi networks with features and capabilities currently offered on cellular networks.

Despite his enthusiasm for how WiFi could play a broader role in cable’s service strategy, Moffett noted that his firm has not factored wireless into its model for Comcast, which he views as the best positioned for a WiFi-first approach.

“Our goal here is to assess the viability of the concept and no more,” Moffett wrote.

FreedomPop, a startup that sells “free” mobile voice and data services to cost-conscious consumers and claims to have held discussions with U.S. cable operators, has booted up its own brand of Android-powered products that carry sub-$100 price points.

In a move that complements the company's distribution of refurbished Sprint devices and aims to fill the gap on low-cost Android mobile gear, the initial FreedomPop-branded product to ship is the Liberty (pictured), a 7-inch, 4-Gigabyte, Android-based WiFi-only phablet that sells for $89. The company notes that the Liberty is larger and less expensive than Apple’s first phablet product, the iPhone 6 Plus, which sports a 5.5-inch screen, and the Samsung Galaxy Note and its 5.7-inch screen. FreedomPop made the Liberty WiFi only to keep costs down, but said customers can tap into cellular by pairing it with $49 FreedomPop hotspot that supports 500 megabytes of free data per month.

FreedomPop will follow next month with the Frenzy, a $99 phablet that’s the same size as the Liberty, but adds LTE capabilities.

In the coming months, FreedomPop, which rides Sprint’s wireless network, will also introduce an $89 LTE Android phone, expanding on a higher-end lineup that already includes the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and Note 3.

FreedomPop said all devices come with its free text and voice service – up to 200 voice minutes and 500 texts per month before tiered pricing plans apply.

In another cost-cutting move, all of these new FreedomPop-branded devices will not support a 3G fallback. But LTE availability is “now good enough that you’ll get ubiquitous coverage in most major markets,” said Stephen Stokols, FreedomPop’s CEO, noting that the company adds software that auto-connects users to WiFi when they are in the presence of a hotspot.

“The idea is to be ahead of the curve on LTE-only [products],” he said, estimating that FreedomPop has an 18-month lead on other carriers that are considering LTE-only offerings.

FreedomPop, founded in 2011, doesn’t disclose specific customer figures, but “it’s in the several hundreds of thousands, and growing pretty fast,” Stokols said. FreedomPop is on a trajectory to break the 1 million customer market sometime in 2015, he added.

Stokols told FierceWireless last month that FreedomPop has conducted M&A talks with a publicly traded telecom company that isn’t among the Tier 1 U.S. wireless carriers (Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile US), but that the company’s preference is to build toward an IPO.

Cable Talks

U.S. cable operators don’t have access to their own cellular networks, but many have been aggressively deploying metro WiFi networks, possibly setting the stage for so-called “WiFi-first” wireless voice services that use cellular as a fallback.

Stokols said FreedomPop has held some discussions with cable operators, but notes that MSOs are interested in pursuing strategies that are disruptive and can scale up rapidly. But many MSOs are concerned that moving into wireless too aggressively will be a drag on their ARPUs, he said.

“There’s board-level sensitivity around that,” Stokols said. “But 12 months from now, I’d be shocked if a cable operator doesn’t do a WiFi First service.”

Time Warner Cable has become the first cable operator to forge a bilateral roaming access deal with WiFi network operator Boingo.

Financial terms were not announced, but the roaming component will give TWC broadband subs access to more than 100 “premium” Boingo locations, including 23 high-traffic  airports in the U.S. as well as several NYC-area subway stations, while also providing certain Boingo customers with access to more than 35,000 WiFi hotspots the MSO has deployed in markets such as New York; Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; and Charlotte, N.C.

The companies, both members of the Wireless Broadband Alliance that are participating in next-gen trials, said they will also complete a Passpoint-enabled integration later this year that will enable TWC and Boingo customers to connect seamlessly and securely with their Passpoint-certified devices and account credentials. Last month, TWC announced it had added Passpoint security and Hotspot 2.0 technology to most of its hotspots, a move that brings cellular-like capabilities to its growing WiFi network.

Boingo, which offers access to more than 1 million hotspots globally, said its Unlimited subscribers can take advantage of TWC hotspots in L.A., NYC, Austin, Charlotte, Myrtle Beach, Hawaii and Kansas City. Not covered by the agreement announced Tuesday are hotspots operated by other MSOs that are part of the “Cable WiFi” alliance (Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Comcast, and Cablevision Systems), which have deployed more than 250,000 so far. Boingo is currently promoting the Unlimited service for $4.98 per month, down from a regular price of $9.95 per month, for up to two WiFi devices.

“Our agreement with Time Warner Cable greatly enhances our network of partner hotspots in the U.S., providing added value for our Boingo Unlimited and Boingo Mobile customers. We’re thrilled to extend access to the TWC WiFi Hotspots to our customers in cities from coast to coast,” said Nick Hulse, president, Boingo Wireless, in a statement.

TWC customers, meanwhile, can will be able to connect to the select Boingo hotspots via the WiFi provider’s service set identifier (SSID). Boingo hotspots covered by the agreement include airports such as La Guardia, JFK and Newark, Chicago O’Hare International, Raleigh-Durham International, Dallas Love Field, Austin Bergstrom, Denver International Airport, Memphis International and Nashville International. Also covered: 36 NYC subway station platforms, Soldier Field in Chicago, and “several” Washington State ferries.

“Free Wi-Fi adds tremendous value to our Internet service.  Now, our customers can stay connected when they travel with free access to Boingo Hotspots in major airports and other popular locations around the country,” added Rob Cerbone, VP of mobile products for TWC.

TWC said the new Boingo hotspots covered by the agreement have been added to its WiFi coverage map, and will soon be added to the TWC Finder app.

Cable’s  history with mobile services is full of stops, starts and outright disasters.  In recent years, we’ve witnessed the scuttling of the Sprint “Pivot” partnership/experiment, cable's partnership and investment with Clearwire that eventually turned to dust, and Cox Communications' flirtation with building its own mobile network (Cox eventualy decided to cut and run).

Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks still have a partnership with Verizon Wireless that has resulted in some service bundling, a scrapped technology innovation J.V., and still lots of questions about whether this agreement will ultimately serve as the foundation of something meaningful or just another crumbled relationship.  

Meanwhile, many of the nation’s top cable operators have hitched their wagons to WiFi, deploying hundreds of thousands of hotspots out on the HFC network coupled with roaming agreements, and an increasing use of in-home gateways as neighborhood hotspots.

Although WiFi has traditionally been a fixed wireless technology, we’re already seeing evidence of next-gen WiFi networks that can enable seamless handoffs between those hotspots, with Time Warner Cable taking the lead this week with its announced widespread deployment of Hotspot 2.0 technology.

As evidenced by Comcast’s TWC merger filing, Comcast has also been considering a so-called “WiFi  First” approach that would favor WiFi over other connectivity options, namely cellular.

But despite that important MSO roaming partnership that remains limited to four card-carrying members (albeit large ones), WiFi isn’t everywhere (yet), and there's still some doubt that it can offer mobility that is on par with cellular networks, so any notion of ubiquitous coverage still requires access to the cellular network. Cable doesn’t have one that it can call its own.

Timing being everything, one company that is trying to jump on this WiFi First trend is Scratch Wireless, which markets a direct-to-consumer product, but is also developing a version tailored for cable operators.

Under Scratch Wireless’s approach, its service prefers WiFi, if available, providing free unlimited text, data and voice, and then rolls to the Sprint Nextel network when it’s not. Text messaging on Sprint is free, with voice and data supported by a pay-as-you-go model. Scratch Wireless estimates that two-third of its customers are living the free life.

To enable this model, Scratch Wireless has tapped open source technology to develop a modified version of Android that runs on the Motorola Proton Q, the company’s launch device (though it’s looking to expand that part of its offering), that uses WiFi as the primary network and cellular as a gap-filler.

“WiFi, like water, is plentiful and it’s cheap,” Scratch Wireless co-founder and CEO Alan Berrey said during a Webcast this week that was sponsored by Scratch Wireless and presented by Multichannel News (an archive of it is available here).

But he also thinks that cable is getting short-changed when mobile devices are using WiFi to offload data on their mobile devices, calling it a “pretty one-sided deal.” Cable operators, Berrey said, are being “paid a pittance” for that part of the distribution.

Without any formal WiFi access deals, Scratch customers on average are connected via WiFi 84% of the time, he said.

He said Scratch Wireless is in “active discussions” with cable operators, and anticipates that pilots could start as soon as this summer, and possibly follow by initial deployments in the fall. “They seem hungry for a solution and a way to compete in the mobile space,” Berrey said.

Most of us grew up with cellular being first for voice and data. The WiFi First approach “flips it on its head,” said fellow panelist Carrie MacGillvray, the vice president of mobile services, internet of things, and network infrastructure at IDC.

WiFi First also offers operators an “opportunity to compete head-to-head with the mobile operators,” she said, noting later that broader WiFi deployments matched with the federation of those hotspots give cable an opportunity to serve customers on a national scale.

But as I mentioned earlier, it’s unlikely that WiFi, which currently offers “static mobility” (as MacGillvray aptly calls it), can do the job on its own. Cable still needs a form of cellular backup.

And Berrey agrees, noting that even Scratch’s solution isn’t complete without its connection to Sprint. But the WiFi First approach puts cellular “in its appropriate second chair position on the device,” he said.

Looking to bring the kind of seamless handoff capabilities offered on cellular networks to the WiFi world, Time Warner Cable has added Hotspot 2.0 technology to “most” of its 33,000-plus hotspots deployed in parts of Southern California, New York City, Austin, Charlotte, Kansas City, Myrtle Beach and Hawaii.

The introduction of Hotspot 2.0 brings a level of seamless mobility to TWC’s WiFi network that will automatically keep customers connected as they roam from hotspot to hotspot. While that will help customers stay on WiFi networks and avoid having to fallback to cellular for regular data connection needs, the capability could come in handy if or when MSOs begin to pursue voice services that use a so-called “WiFi First” model.

TWC has also bolstered the security of that network by Passpoint-enabling it. TWC said it has launched a separate “TWCWiFi-Passport” SSID that adds in this extra layer of encryption, offering it alongside regular “TWCWiFi” SSIDs being broadcast by its hotspots. TWC said the Passpoint capability will bring “enterprise-grade WPA2” security, giving customers the same level of protection on its quasi-public WiFi network as customers get on their home WiFi links. TWC claimed that it now offers the largest Passpoint-enabled network in the country.

After authenticating on the TWCWiFi-Passpoint SSID the first time, customers will then seamlessly connect to the new preferred secure network whenever in broadcast range, the MSO said, noting that its Passpoint/Hotspot 2.0 network supports devices such as the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy 4, and HTC One, among others.

 “Our goal with TWCWiFi-Passpoint is to assure even our most security conscious Internet customer that it’s as safe for them to surf the Web on-the-go as it is for them to surf in their home,” said Rob Cerbone, VP Wireless Products for Time Warner Cable, in a statement. “The TWCWiFi-Passpoint network supports Hotspot 2.0 technology, which is a critical first step in setting up a seamless WiFi experience nationwide.”

TWC, which uses WiFi gear from Ericsson, Cisco Systems and Ruckus Wireless, said it will Passport-enable all new hotspots as it continues its network buildout.

TWC is also part of the “CableWiFi” roaming alliance that has deployed more than 200,000 hotspots so far. It was not immediately known how broadly its other members – Cox Communications, Comcast, Bright House Networks and Cablevision Systems – have deployed Passpoint and Hotspot 2.0, though it’s on Comcast’s roadmap, according to Fierce Wireless.

Update: Cox does not currently support Passpoint and Hotspot 2.0, spokesman Todd Smith said via email.

Comcast’s potential interest in a WiFi First approach, which would use cellular networks as a fallback when WiFi connectivity isn’t available, was revealed in its merge filing with the FCC.

"A ubiquitous Wi-Fi network built by Comcast could make a 'Wi-Fi-first' service, which combines commercial mobile radio service with Wi-Fi, a more viable alternative,” Comcast wrote.

The WiFi First concept is central to Scratch Wireless, which offers a WiFi/cellular combo that uses the Sprint network for the cellular side of that mix. Using open source technology, it is currently using a  modified version of Android on the Motorola Proton Q (Scratch Wireless’s  launch device) that uses WiFi as the primary network and uses cellular as a gap-filler.

On Wednesday (April 16) during a webcast presented by Multichannel News and sponsored by Scratch Wireless (access to the archive can be obtained here), Scratch Wireless co-founder and CEO Alan Berrey said his company has developed a version of its service tailored for cable operators.

“WiFi, like water, is plentiful and it’s cheap,” Berrey said. He said Scratch Wireless is in “active discussions” with cable operators, and anticipates that pilots could start as soon as this summer, and possibly follow by initial deployments in the fall.

More coverage of today's webinar will be presented soon.