Dan, T has to launch from air, land, sea, and deep space... well maybe not deep space, literally, although in some ways they will be leveraging TCI's sky birds, to be sure.
Coax and Fiber in the subscriber markets are not as pervasive at this time, where T and TCI are concerned, as many would imagine. Much of TCI's and their affiliates' coax is not up to par, with regard to upstream capabilities. And at best, only a third (considerable, but still not ubiquitous) of all homes passed are by TCI and its affiliates.
T will continue its pursuit of wireless local loops, IMO, to augment the cable assets, and possibly lobby their new found partner into some forms of LMDS (Hi Ray, looking for you opinion on this one, too!) or point-to-multipoint techs over the next several years.
And if T exerts its influence in some of the cable properties still to be overbuilt, we may see some fiber to the curb, with copper to the residence and small business yet, using cell based MPEG technology and VDSL-like delivery a la Next Level's or Broadband's.
So, I wouldn't say that fiber and coax are the only solutions that T has to work with over time, since wireless and VDSL are still not out of the picture, but it's looking like coax and fiber (HFCs) will be used far more aggressively now than they would have even been considered, previously, with this new endorsement in hand.
Regards, Frank C.
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