Charter said it is in talks with SpaceX about a possible partnership tied to a consumer mobile offering. The reported arrangement would allow Starlink to offload some traffic on Charter’s terrestrial network.
On Charter’s Q2 earnings call, President and CEO Chris Winfrey kept the answer broad. He said the company talks to many industry players when it thinks it can improve product capabilities, innovate in the marketplace, or lower costs for customers, and added that Charter is not announcing anything about the conversations today.
Spectrum Mobile offload stays central
Winfrey said Charter is willing to use its network for offloading beyond cell tower backhaul. Charter currently offloads about 87% of Spectrum Mobile traffic through Wi-Fi networks and CBRS spectrum, down from 88% after a recent increase in 5G usage.
Winfrey said Charter is still on a path to reach its original low-90% offload outlook. The metric matters because it shows how much mobile traffic Charter can keep off licensed mobile capacity and onto assets it already controls.
Broadband keeps losing ground
Charter lost 172,000 broadband subscribers in the second quarter, including 166,000 residential and 6,000 business subscribers. It ended the quarter with 29.38 million broadband customers.
Residential broadband average revenue per user fell 1.5% to $70.16. Charter expects that figure to improve after pulling back from discounted retention offers, but it still is not saying when broadband growth will return.
Mobile and video moved in opposite directions
Charter added 406,000 mobile lines in the quarter and ended with 12.54 million mobile lines. That growth came as it shed 21,000 video subscribers, ending the quarter with 12.52 million video subscribers.
Winfrey said broadband customers who also take Spectrum Mobile churn 40% less than standalone broadband customers, with a similar improvement for broadband customers who also take Charter’s video service.
What this means for cable mobile buyers
For cable operators and mobile bundle strategists, the useful signal is not the SpaceX rumor itself but Charter’s stated offload target and the churn gap it says comes with bundling. Charter is still pushing toward a low-90% offload rate, while mobile and video remain the two add-ons it says reduce broadband churn.
That makes the Spectrum Mobile economics easier to read than the Starlink chatter. The company is showing its preferred operating model even while it declines to confirm any specific deal.
Cox closing stays on the August track
Charter hopes to close its pending merger with Cox Communications by mid-to-late August. The combined company will use the Cox corporate name but Spectrum branding and Charter’s pricing and packaging models.
Winfrey said the combined company will operate 1.3 million miles of network, more than 70 million passings, and 37 million customers. He also said Charter has started recruiting more than 1,000 new sales jobs in Cox territories and plans to onshore Cox operations that are currently handled by contractors outside the United States.