RESTON, Va.-Sprint Nextel Corp. has hinted that the first fruits of its joint venture with several cable companies will launch in seven markets later this year, and news of which markets those will be is starting to bubble up.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the first combined wireless and cable services from the partnership will be offered in Austin, Texas; Raleigh, N.C.; and Portland, Ore. The Austin and Raleigh markets are served by Time Warner Inc. and Portland is a Comcast Corp. market. Comcast also will launch multi-play service in a New England city that it did not identify for competitive reasons.
The other partners in the $200 million joint venture, Advance/Newhouse Communications Inc. and Cox Communications Inc., have not revealed where their first markets will be.
Sprint Nextel executives have said that providing unique, integrated services is the goal of the venture, not simply sticking wireless into a communications bundle. Among the possibilities that the company has talked about is an integrated voice mail service, and personal e-mail and additional video content being available through cellular phones.
