Cable TV Firms Seek to Add Wireless Service

Time Warner Inc., which runs the nation’s second-largest cable television service, is part of a group of cable companies interested in adding wireless service to their telephone, cable TV and Internet access packages.

“Wireless would be a good extension to our business,” Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt told investors Thursday at the UBS media conference in New York. Time Warner and other cable TV operators are “looking into it together,” he said, declining to elaborate.

Comcast Corp. co-Chief Financial Officer John Alchin said, “It stands to reason we’d be part of that group.”

Cox Communications Inc. has had talks with other cable operators about offering wireless service, spokesman David Grabert said.

Cable companies are trying to boost sales as they vie for subscribers with satellite TV operators such as DirecTV Group Inc. and phone companies including Verizon Communications Inc. Verizon and DirecTV are jointly selling a package of services that competes with the cable operators’ existing Web access, TV and phone products.

The cable companies, including Comcast, Cox, Charter Communications Inc. and Advance/Newhouse Communications Inc., may buy a cellular operator or resell minutes from a wireless company to their existing customers.

The 21.5 million subscribers at Comcast, the world’s largest cable company, make independent wireless telephone providers “keen to do some sort of venture with us,” Alchin told investors at the UBS conference.

Cox’s Grabert said his company had not agreed to any wireless deals.

Shares of Time Warner rose 23 cents to $18.38 on the New York Stock Exchange. Comcast rose 72 cents to $30.62 on Nasdaq.