Vodafone’s interest in cable is a vote of confidence in the cable business model, according to IHS research director Guy Bisson.
“It is a vote of confidence in the way that cable has positioned for the future of entertainment. A future at which television remains centre stage, but in which broadband (and increasingly mobile) take near equal billing,” Bisson writes in Cable News, the journal of trade body Cable Europe.
The star analyst says the telcos are looking for a share of the €52.5bn consumer-level spend on screen entertainment, a figure that continues to rise year on year, to supplement revenues from mobile connectivity.
While cable companies have long been involved in the telecoms business, Bisson argues that it is where the two industries meet that the exciting opportunities exist.
“This edge is the Event Horizon of entertainment. Today, cable finds itself perfectly positioned and it is this future that Vodafone will be buying into.
Without cable infrastructure, Vodafone would struggle to participate fully in the entertainment landscape of tomorrow.”
From the cable side, Liberty Global’s Horizon and Virgin Media’s TiVo will gradually move to the cloud, providing further mobile opportunities.
