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Cablevision considering ultra-cheap unlimited cellphone service?

Cable companies have been pushing into wireless with more urgency than ever lately -- take Cox and Comcast, just to name a couple -- and now it seems Cablevision is taking a good, hard look at launching a cellphone service under its Optimum brand. Current service subscribers are being asked if they'd be interested in "unlimited calling, texting, and internet data access" for $29.95 a month, which is ridiculously, mind-numbingly low for such a package if Cablevision is actually capable of delivering. It seems they'll try to bridge the gap by launching the service with a WiFi slant -- presumably using UMA -- falling back to cellular on the road when you're outside the range of one of Optimum's hotspots. They're promising "a variety of smartphone choices that offer features comparable to those offered by iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry," so hey, if the price is right and the service actually works, why not? There's no word on when Optimum might launch this action, but we have a hard time believing many of the people that got the survey actually responded "no."

[Thanks, Maikel]