Time Warner, Sprint launch MVNO trial in Kansas City

SAN FRANCISCO--Time Warner today officially unveiled its long-rumored cable MVNO plans with Sprint today, as the two companies announced at the National Cable Telecommunications Association Show that they have launched a market trial of wireless services for Time Warner's cable customers in Kansas City.

The deal is the first hint of so-called "quadruple-play" services from an MSO, delivering voice, broadband data, cable programming and wireless services on the same bill. The companies revealed few details of the trial, and did not say if the trial would result in direct integration of Sprint's wireless service with Time Warner's VoIP-based digital phone service, but news reports out of Kansas City said Time Warner and Sprint have begun offering free calls between home numbers and wireless numbers on the same bill.

As Sprint cable companies roll out their VoIP services, they are expected to increasingly figure wireless into the bundle, initially as a separate service. As the capabilities of the MSO's VoIP networks increase and wireless carriers deploy IP Multimedia Subsystem overlays, the two networks will eventually become linked, allowing customers to pass new SIP-based features between their home phones and wireless handsets. The integration is expected to affect data services as well as voice, allowing cable operators to ship limited programming content over carriers' 3G networks and even use the mobile phone as a remote control to program digital video recorders away from home.