I agree. Furthermore, I do not see wireless as an effective competitor for cable for delivery of content to fixed locations. I use high speed internet over cable, and the difference in cost between that and Internet access via a wireless carrier is in the orders of magnitude range.

Where wireless becomes important is when you are on the road and need access. For most people that means smart phone and is focused on alpha-numeric communication — email and SMS/chat — with a limited amount of browsing and photo upload and download. That is very different from how most of us use the Internet in fixed locations. For instance, if someone sent me a large attached file, say a video, and I happened to receive it while out on the road I would almost always delay downloading it until I could get back to my high speed connection (or at the least find a free WiFi hot spot where I could use my laptop rather than a smart phone or PDA).

So I am rather mystified about this deal. I think the people who are really threatened are the traditional telcos. They are in a very bad position in general. VoIP is a huge threat to their traditional business since it delivers quality voice at a tiny fraction of their huge cost structure. In many areas they cannot begin to compete in data delivery speed with cable. And they are just as tethered to specific locations as cable, so they don’t have the roaming advantage of cellular.

Bert