Charter extends mobile promo to SMBs

Apparently Charter Communications saw so much success with its offer of one free year of Unlimited Spectrum Mobile for residential customers that it decided to extend it to new and existing small business customers.

Last fall, Charter’s Spectrum Mobile brand started doing a heavy ad blitz around a bundle it calls “Spectrum One,” which includes internet, advanced Wi-Fi and a single mobile line for $49.99/month for 12 months. The company said the introductory price included one free line of Unlimited Spectrum Mobile for a year.

Under a new promotion announced on Monday, new customers who sign up for Spectrum Business Internet and Business Voice or Business Connect can get one free line of Unlimited Spectrum Mobile for Business, which normally costs $29.99/months, for 12 months. Current customers can qualify for one free line of unlimited mobile when they add Business Internet or Voice, or they can get a second line for free when they add Spectrum Mobile service to their existing internet service.

What it’s doing in mobile appears to be working. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Charter posted 615,000 new mobile lines. Comcast added 365,000 in the same period; both companies ended 2022 with about 5.3 million mobile lines each.

Cox Communications was later to the party, having just launched the nationwide Cox Mobile service in January. All three use Verizon’s network in MVNO deals.

All about the bundle

Jeff Moore, principal of Wave7 Research, said Charter’s latest offer for small business owners is a competitive one.

It’s akin to a grocery store that will offer a great deal – say $2.99 for a pound of ground beef – and take a hit on that knowing the customers who come into the store for the great deal will end up spending $50 or $100 on other groceries.

“Free mobile access is really a loss leader for Charter,” he said. It’s also part of a larger theme where cable companies are putting a lot of effort into bundling. Comcast’s Xfinity launched a bundle that’s fairly similar to Charter’s Spectrum One, and Cox Mobile is hinting that it will be coming out with a new kind of bundle.

“It sort of seems like the cable companies … are doing bundles that involve free or discounted wireless service,” he said. “More remains to be seen. This is really the first time we’ve seen them go all in,” and he expects to see more aggressive behavior from the cable companies in mobile in 2023. “I think the wireless carriers are going to see some damage from this.”

One counter argument that mobile carriers are likely to make about Charter’s latest deal is that it’s a typical cable offer and expires after one year, he said.