Comcast Lost 167,000 Broadband Subs in Second Quarter

hex0101

lesmikesell poor retention strategy within the past few years. Comcast used to do everything in their power to keep you. Now they don’t offer any crazy deals and will just cancel your service if you ask.

lesmikesell

hex0101 Now they don’t offer any crazy deals and will just cancel your service if you ask.

It has to be complicated by the TV side where they can’t go too low or they lose money from the rebroadcast fees. And unless you are a newcomer in an area hoping to increase prices later it doesn’t make sense to lose money to keep a customer.

hex0101

lesmikesell true, but couldn’t you still offer cheaper rates on the Internet side? Or drop the equipment fees for the TV boxes?

lesmikesell

hex0101 but couldn’t you still offer cheaper rates on the Internet side?

They do offer cheaper rates on the internet side if you go to prepaid. If they make it too easy to get the cheap rates all of the higher paying customers will switch - and they still have to cash flow continuous upgrades. But at this point I’m more concerned about the cost of the bazillion streaming services you need if you want to watch the couple of good exclusive things each one has. The internet service side is slipping down into the noise.

retnbmn

I agree price is a major component in customer retention for Internet service, but the service (speeds & reliability) being offered is also an important component. I have been a Comcast and its predecessor TV service customer for 40 years, and I have had Comcast Internet service since 2019. I moved to Comcast Internet once their upload speeds were comparable to my DSL service, and DSL reliability in my area was decreasing due to aging underground copper infrastructure. The move to Comcast Internet saved money, but that was a secondary consideration. Now in 2026 with no indication of if/when Xfinity will upgrade our area from sub-split, I just had Quantum/ATT fiber installed this week with the primary motivations being improved upload speed and possibly better reliability. My Xfinity service reliability has been decreasing, but not to the extent it is actionable with any chance of success.

My Quantum fiber 1 Gb service (delivering 1.27 Gb down, 1.30 Gb up) is $45 per month total bill. My Xfinity 1.3 Gb service (delivering 1.4 Gb down, 41 Mb up) is $119 per month plus taxes and fees. To get somewhat competitive Xfinity pricing I would have to go the new customer route and degrade service from 1.3 Gb to 1.0 Gb for $50 per month plus taxes and fees. A history of service changes with Xfinity not going smoothly is a further deterrent to making changes.

hex0101

hex0101 fiber lashing has begun.

GSM-in-FL

jweaver Only way i see losses stopping is acceleration of FDX rollout

retnbmn Now in 2026 with no indication of if/when Xfinity will upgrade our area from sub-split, I just had Quantum/ATT fiber installed this week with the primary motivations being improved upload speed

It’s hard for people here to understand sometimes, but most people outside of this site really don’t care at all about download speeds above 1Gbps or upload speeds faster than 50-100Mb or so.

Yes, I’m sure some number of people are switching from cable to fiber due to upload speeds, but it’s a pretty small minority.

Most people just really don’t generate that much data at home, or upload GBs and GBs from home.

Device backups are probably the biggest thing most people upload, and those generally happen automatically overnight while your phone is on Wi-Fi.

Most people are not video editors working from home, needing to upload 50GB files multiple times per week.

Regular upload usage like video calling only needs 2-3Mbps for HD.

hex0101

GSM-in-FL they switch either due to poor reliability or high pricing. Those two stick out more than the upload speed for most casual Internet users.

swilliams

IMO, fiber provides an ‘anybody but Comcast’ opportunity. Sure, the techies among us want what fiber has to offer speed and ping wise, but the average person, I’d guess is, ’screw you Comcast. I’m DONE with you.'

crucialcolin

hex0101 they switch either due to poor reliability or high pricing. Those two stick out more than the upload speed for most casual Internet users.

Comcast does seem to generate a lot of reliability Complaints with coax. Amps with signal stray one way or the other over time requiring seasonal adjustments, loose connections, weather getting to equipment, etc tend to wreak havoc on local reliability. HFC is a lot of infrastructure to maintain. As such they have gotten a bad reputation for poor reliability amongst the general population.

Another common complaint I see causing people to leave an ISP lately is not the specific data speeds of a connection but people simply saying my connection suddenly became slow after they started doing some new task like signing up for an online backup service or something similar. That is they don’t realize they might be better off served by a different plan or even equipment when their behavior or utilization rates change. This of course can also go both ways (overspending).

It’s honestly amazing how dumb the general pop can be sometimes lol

iahawkeye83

Maybe if they would have US based customer support that you don’t have to jump through hoops to get a live representative on the line, actually make repairs to their network instead of blaming customer equipment and maybe bless some of their areas with FTTP instead of operating on a system designed originally for TV. I now have GoNetSpeed FTTP and I get US-based customer support. Rate is reasonable as well.

px_eliezer_

iahawkeye83 Maybe if they would have US based customer support that you don’t have to jump through hoops to get a live representative on the line, actually make repairs to their network instead of blaming customer equipment and maybe bless some of their areas with FTTP instead of operating on a system designed originally for TV. I now have GoNetSpeed FTTP and I get US-based customer support. Rate is reasonable as well.

Exactly.

All these damn companies need to bring back US-based customer support, and the smart ones do (such as Consumer Cellular and Discover Card).

GoNetSpeed is coming to some NJ towns, I wish to hell it was coming to mine.

MacLeech

iahawkeye83 Charter/Spectrum has done most of those things and is still losing customers. Altice/Optimum has been converting their network to FTTH for the last 10 years, lost customers the entire time, and is on the edge of bankruptcy.

geek

MacLeech Optimum’s advertising dog isn’t helping things either. Looks like they used animation from a few years ago and a very hyper dog.

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/gsOE/optimum-fiber-gus-happy

GSM-in-FL

swilliams Depends on price. I don’t know many people who would switch from $30 Comcast to $75 fiber just because they hate Comcast.

MacLeech

GSM-in-FL I don’t know many people who would switch from $30 Comcast

That’s the issue, the vast majority of Comcast customers don’t have $30 Comcast. Also, Verizon and ATT are selling fiber for less than $75, wireless providers about the same, both bundle for less with mobile service.

https://www.xfinity.com/learn/internet-service
https://www.verizon.com/home/internet/fios-fastest-internet/
https://www.att.com/internet/fiber/

https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet
https://www.verizon.com/home/internet/5g/
https://www.att.com/internet/internet-air/

GSM-in-FL

crucialcolin It’s honestly amazing how dumb the general pop can be sometimes lol

Terrible home Wi-Fi is also a major factor.

I know a lot of people with larger houses who just use their ISP gateway stuck in some room, then they wonder why the Wi-Fi works terribly several rooms away, and doesn’t cover their entire 3,000 square foot house…

They might be paying for 1Gb fiber, but they’re only getting 10Mbps several floors away on 2.4GHz lol

I think we’re getting to a point where you’ll really want a Wi-Fi AP in each main room of your house if you want to reach the speeds you’re paying for, especially with 6GHz.

GSM-in-FL

MacLeech That’s the issue, the vast majority of Comcast customers don’t have $30 Comcast.

I don’t know the stats, but most customers are on some type of promo price.

And generally if you call in and threaten to cancel you can get a new promo price.

MacLeech

GSM-in-FL I don’t know the stats, but most customers are on some type of promo price.

And generally if you call in and threaten to cancel you can get a new promo price.

And in both of those situations it’s not $30 per month from Comcast. Their common low price promo is $40

GSM-in-FL

MacLeech And in both of those situations it’s not $30 per month from Comcast. Their common low price promo is $40

That’s their current pricing. They have had $30 promo pricing in the past, or even lower.

I think Performance Starter was $19 for many years.

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