With apologies to Fleetwood Mac, Midco is entering the mobile game, and it’s going its own way.
Midco announced this week that it is developing a mobile offering in tandem with two partners – Telgoo5 and BlueConnects. That effectively means that Midco is not going to lean on the mobile deals with AT&T and Reach established by the National Content & Technology Cooperative (NCTC), a company that cuts tech and programming deals on behalf of hundreds of independent operators. Midco is an NCTC member.
Mobile enablement
Under Midco’s partnership approach, Telgoo5, which claims to have more than 10 million mobile lines on its platform already, will serve as a mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE) and provide Midco with elements such as billing, life-cycle management and “digital commerce integration.”
A Midco store in Lawrence, Kansas. (Source: Wave7 Research)
Meanwhile, New York-based BlueConnects, another company in the MVNE realm, brings in BSS/OSS services, eSIM and physical SIM capabilities, and the MVNO relationship. BlueConnects notes online that it uses “the nation’s largest and most trusted wireless network,” but it doesn’t reference AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon by name. All three MNOs think highly of their wireless coverage, of course, but, for what it’s worth, Verizon Wireless does tend to use that phrasing in its marketing.
BlueConnects has been asked for comment on its MVNO relationship. BlueConnects and Telgoo5 are evidently connected, as Stuart Chowning is listed as a co-founder and chief strategist at BlueConnects and as chief strategy officer at Telgoo5.
Midco Mobile to launch in second half of 2025
Midco confirmed that it intends to launch its new offering, to be branded as Midco Mobile, sometime in the second half of the year. The company said it’s too early to discuss pricing and packaging, though many of its cable peers tend to offer a mix of by-the-Gig and unlimited plans. But, mirroring the way its cable peers are marketing mobile, Midco will make Midco Mobile available only to its home broadband customers.
Midco’s “device strategy is in the works and we are excited to explore how this will fit into our customer experience,” a Midco official said via email in response to questions.
Midco also shed some light on why it opted for this approach with a pair of partners rather than the NCTC agreements. “We had excellent options for moving Midco Mobile forward and ultimately went with Telgoo5 and BlueConnects due to their technical capabilities, performance history and team philosophy,” the Midco official explained.
Wider trend
When Midco Mobile launches, it will join a growing group of US cable operators that have added mobile to the bundle to help defend their broadband services and develop broader service convergence strategies.
Among Tier 1s, Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications have MVNO pacts with Verizon, and Altice USA is partnered up with T-Mobile. Several operators, including Breezeline, Schurz Communications, TDS Telecom, Allo Communications and TVS Cable, have launched or plan to launch mobile via the NCTC agreements. Others, such as WideOpenWest, Astound Broadband and Mediacom Communications, have developed their own MVNO/MVNE relationships. Cable One, meanwhile, is keeping an eye on the mobile opportunity, but so far has stayed on the sidelines.
Midco, which conducted due diligence on a potential move into mobile last year, will be looking to beef up its broadband bundle with the new mobile offering. Midco currently serves more than 1 million homes and businesses (including about 100,000 that are passed with fiber-to-the-premises technology) across 400 communities in Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Can cable succeed in mobile?
Jeff Moore of Wave7 Research said the “trail [to mobile] has been very well blazed” by US cable operators, which are using mobile to defend their core broadband businesses. He views the coming mobile launch as a positive for Midco, which Moore notes has recently been using TV ads to defend against fixed wireless access (FWA) competition. Meanwhile, he points out that AT&T has been getting aggressive in markets such as Lawrence, Kansas, with a “systematic effort” to pitch fiber, including door-to-door sales.
Roger Entner, founder and lead analyst at Recon Analytics, acknowledges that Comcast and Charter have been highly successful with mobile. But he reckons that Tier 2/3 operators will struggle to succeed in that market due to their smaller scale.
“It is a challenge,” Entner said. “Pricing is particularly a big challenge when you’re smaller. You need size. The reality is that it’s a tough, tough business.”
He likewise wonders if it might make more sense for some smaller operators to attach mobile through referral programs that deliver a bounty when a sale is made, an approach that some cable operators are already using to promote virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) such as YouTube TV.
“Philosophically, it makes a lot of sense,” Entner said of the mobile referral strategy.
Cable’s move into the mobile arena through MVNO and MVNE paths will be a major topic later this month that Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies in Denver. “Day 0” of the program – the MVNO Summit – is set for Monday, March 24.
