Convergence Fueling ‘Cable Comeback’ Against Fixed Wireless: Spectrum COO
He predicted ISPs will eventually need converged offerings to compete
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2026 – Spectrum COO Nick Jeffery isn’t worried about competition from fixed wireless or satellite in the long term.
He said in a LinkedIn post Thursday that fixed wireless would land “at some form of equilibrium,” and that satellite would continue to be a complement for rural areas.
Spectrum is the brand name under which cable giant Charter Communications sells broadband service, and the company has recently started going by Spectrum informally.
Last month Spectrum closed its acquisition of Cox Communications, and the legal name of the company will change from Charter to Cox Communications sometime this year.
Cable companies have been steadily losing subscribers in recent years, in part because of fierce competition from fixed wireless services offered by the mobile carriers.
But Jeffery, who started at Spectrum Sept. 1 after leading something of a turnaround at Frontier, argued that at some point cheap fixed wireless prices would have to rise as it took up more and more of a carrier’s fallow spectrum capacity.
New Street Research analysts have estimated the carriers have room for about 32 million fixed wireless customers, but that’s not including extra spectrum acquired after late 2025. AT&T has since bought spectrum from EchoStar, and the Federal Communications Commission is targeting four more auctions by the end of 2028.
CTIA, the mobile industry group, said in a recent report the carriers count about 16 million currently — T-Mobile doesn’t report subscriber numbers anymore, so a precise count is unavailable.
MoffettNathanson has estimated fixed wireless accounts for about half of T-Mobile and Verizon’s traffic. T-Mobile executives said that wasn’t far off, while Verizon CEO Dan Schulman would only say fixed wireless wasn’t a majority of their traffic.
Convergence
Jeffery said he was optimistic about Charter’s long-term prospects because he has bought in on convergence, bundling fixed and mobile broadband.
“Ultimately all players need to converge or watch their single-play markets shrink,” he wrote. “Whoever's strong in cellular needs fixed assets, and vice versa.”
Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon agree, and have reported lower subscribe churn among converged customers. The two carriers are racing to expand their fiber footprints to offer converged plans, and Comcast is pushing bundles across its already sprawling footprint in an effort to stave off subscriber losses.
Despite the beating cable has taken, that’s a good situation for Spectrum and Comcast, Jeffery wrote, since they already have wireline footprints in excess of 60 millions passings and can simply promote mobile service offered through a deal with Verizon.
“The telcos are pushing convergence to defend mobile and attack fixed – but none of them have national fixed scale, and building it takes decades and serious capital,” he wrote. “Cable, on the other hand, already has near-national fixed coverage, plus national wireless reach in a market where convergence is already deeply rooted. That's a business built to defend fixed and attack mobile – profitably.”
Some smaller ISPs have said they’re feeling the pressure to offer bundles of their own through mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) deals with carriers.
Vistabeam and open-access consortium UTOPIA Fiber offer mobile bundles somewhat begrudgingly, executives said at Mountain Connect last month.
On the other hand, Shentel CEO Ed McKay said at the Citi TMT conference last week that the company didn’t feel the need to offer a mobile service. Fiber provider gFiber — formerly GFiber, before Google sold a majority stake to the investment firm that owns Astound — also isn’t going the bundle route for now, despite seeing some sales impacts.
T-Mobile has also downplayed the benefits of convergence and isn’t aggressively pursuing fiber expansion like the other carriers.
Consolidation
Jeffery said small ISPs across the country were likely to be bought up as builds become more expensive and competition spreads to more rural areas.
Spectrum has more than 70 million passings after acquiring Cox. He wrote that size gave it “massive scale economics, with more to come.”
Fidium, formerly Consolidated Communications, is open to buying up smaller providers, the company’s CEO said during a FIber Broadband Association webinar this month. Fidium served about 350,000 subscribers nationally at the end of last year.
Analysts have also predicted Verizon will acquire another regional provider, given its fiber passing goals. T-Mobile has acquired multiple regional fiber providers through joint ventures in recent years.
