Comcast Splits

DrSmith · 2026-06-29T14:15:02+00:00

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/comcast-spinoff-nbcuniversal-sky-split-two-companies-rcna352188 I guess this means no more free Peacock.

lesmikesell

Donut417 On top of all the streaming services that are eating their cable TV services lunch.

It is the requirement to carry locals and pay inflated rebroadcast fees that killed cable TV service.

Donut417

lesmikesell To an extent yes. But before streaming people didnt have many options. It was get TV from your Cable company OR get Satellite TV. If you were close enough and fine with the limited selection you could get TV from OTA. BUT now you have many Live TV services. More and more people are able to swtich easy. If anything streaming has been accelerating the death of Cable TV.

GSM-in-FL Comcast would still be losing customers if they had upgraded everyone to fiber but were still charging $100/month for it.

100% valid point. People don’t understand that many view Comcast as a bunch of ass holes. Because Comcast for decades has treated customers poorly. Its not always about the speed or cost. Some times, people just want to go with a different option because they don’t like the one they have for any number of reasons.

GSM-in-FL

SpottedCat Comcast has had ample opportunity to upgrade their network to XGSPON FTTH rather than keep trying to improve coax, and they kept not doing so and now fiber is stealing their lunch.

Price is the reason they’re losing customers, not upload speeds or 5Gb download speeds.

90%+ of people have no need for 1Gb+ download speed, or 100Mb+ upload speed.

Millions of people have switched to slower 5G fixed wireless, or even Starlink in many cases, just because it’s cheaper than their inflated non-promo price cable bill.

Analysts estimated 20% of Starlink customers are switching from a cable company.

Comcast would still be losing customers if they had upgraded everyone to fiber but were still charging $100/month for it.

SpottedCat

GSM-in-FL

I don’t know about this. Pretty much everyone I talk to who has switched to fiber talks about how much better an online experience is, and word spreads. I’ve already told several people to just switch to fiber because it’s so much better, and a couple people have.

You should have seen the army of AT&T Fiber trucks in my neighborhood when it went live. Everyone was dumping Comcast. It was a sight to behold. I was really happy to see AT&T rewarded for investing in getting fiber installed because it means they’ll continue doing so elsewhere.

GSM-in-FL

Donut417 Yes, price for both internet and TV is why they’re losing customers. It’s too expensive.

lesmikesell

Donut417 Because Comcast for decades has treated customers poorly.

But in a very large number of places Comcast was the only company that cared enough to pull wires to houses. And until fairly recently they were pretty good about extending promo pricing to people that whined enough.

Donut417

lesmikesell But in a very large number of places Comcast was the only company that cared enough to pull wires to houses. A

No. Many cable co’s did exclusive rights agreements. Which made them the only game in town. Comcast was not the only company to be the only game in town. Fun fact Comcast didnt pull shit in our town. They gobbled up the cable company we have service to. Also many places also had DSL, as most of America was wired for phone.

lesmikesell

Donut417 Also many places also had DSL, as most of America was wired for phone.

DSL was ‘theoretically’ available because the law said the companies owning copper had to allow other companies to sell internet service over them. However they generally were not interested in helping the process along and it could take a very long time to get it installed. Long ago I worked for a company selling a market data service that was first delivered by satellite, then moved to internet and DSL was the starting point for that.

GSM-in-FL

SpottedCat I don’t know about this. Pretty much everyone I talk to who has switched to fiber talks about how much better an online experience is

How is it?

500Mb over cable vs. 500Mb over fiber isn’t a noticeable difference.

Donut417 Also many places also had DSL, as most of America was wired for phone.

DSL hasn’t been competitive with cable in 20 years now lol, or longer.

Even the fastest VDSL2 is only competitive with slow DOCSIS 3.0.

And some providers like Verizon decided to never upgrade their DSL, so most of their customers were stuck with maximum speeds of 3-7Mbps.

DrSmith

I think almost everybody’s got a unique, possibly contrary experience. In my area we had great, leading edge DSL with Verizon running the copper and trying (failing) to keep up with Comcast cable internet speeds. Then Verizon ran fiber, which was briefly great. Then they sold our whole area to Fairpoint (bankrupt, now Consolidated Comm). And now our fiber is lousy bc Consolidated Comm doesn’t have the high speed backbone or peering relationships.
So if you think DSL was just a theory, that was not true here. Had it, worked great. And if you think FTTH is THE answer, that is also not true here. Although I would agree that if Comcast took over our local fiber it would be an improvement.

Tshirt

GSM-in-FL 500Mb over cable vs. 500Mb over fiber isn’t a noticeable difference.

There are other factors like latency, peering and jitter for some of which there is a physical advantage for fiber,
But a lot of that maybe canceled out by poor network design, management or peering relationships also the product line customer services side ie great service that costs way too much or is unreliable can make the fiber provider not the best choice locally or for a given customer.
It’s nice to have multiple choices. but most markets can’t support more than a few providers, and low take rates, ROI force secondary providers out of competition.
large corporations are quick to identify potential winners , buy them up, and make it unprofitable for the others to continue trying

badtlc4

Tshirt I have directly compared Xfinity 300Mbps (mid split) to at&t fiber 300Mbps at my location and other than latency measurement to first hop, there is no discernable difference between the two under use. I compared gaming, streaming, P2P transfers, etc. The gaming latency was the biggest concern but in general the difference was less than 5ms despite the first hop difference being about 10ms and none of that is detectable other than seeing a number on a screen. Gameplay was identical between the two.

GSM-in-FL

Tshirt I’m just saying, I don’t see entire neighborhoods fleeing from cable to fiber unless the fiber is cheaper.

People wouldn’t be switching if Comcast was $30 and fiber was $60.

Most people are switching only due to price.

lesmikesell

GSM-in-FL Most people are switching only due to price.

And the new company in town will often have temporary promo pricing to buy customers and kill the competition. It rarely makes sense for an old company to lose money on customers.

Tshirt

lesmikesell will often have temporary promo pricing

Much of current marketing relies on winning customers with a promo pricing offer because given an equal price/service offer most people will not bother to make changes

GSM-in-FL People wouldn’t be switching if Comcast was $30 and fiber was $60.

exactly how big a promo it takes to make a large number change providers is surprising, but it would be totally uneconomic for the existing provider to drop their price that much first.
in fact dropping that much would put them out of business just as fast as losing ½ their existing subscribers
few subscribers/long term residents really want to see the results of the collapsed market that would result in a few years of that sort of price war. remember damaged telephone lines “fixed” by black plastic trash bags?
pricing and service set by govt mandated minimum service tariff requirements?

open/free market shouldn’t be a race to the bottom

GSM-in-FL

lesmikesell It rarely makes sense for an old company to lose money on customers.

But Comcast would still rather you pay them $30 instead of $0, if you switched to a competitor.

Losing the customer entirely is worse than lowering their price.

GSM-in-FL

Tshirt in fact dropping that much would put them out of business just as fast as losing ½ their existing subscribers

They already have NOW/prepaid for $30, but most customers don’t know it exists, and it’s not seamless to switch to from postpaid.

Tshirt open/free market shouldn’t be a race to the bottom

Seems to be going fine for the wireless carriers.

They’ve been losing postpaid customers as people switch to much cheaper prepaid plans instead.

Lots of prepaid/MVNOs have unlimited data for $25/month now. Why pay $80+ for postpaid?

MacLeech

GSM-in-FL

GSM-in-FL But Comcast would still rather you pay them $30 instead of $0, if you switched to a competitor.

Losing the customer entirely is worse than lowering their price.

Losing customers is not bad if they’re unprofitable customers. Otherwise they’d never disconnect someone for not paying their bill. Providers have to at the very least bring in enough revenue to cover their expenses.

lesmikesell

GSM-in-FL Losing the customer entirely is worse than lowering their price.

No, losing money is worse than not losing money. This is especially obvious on the TV side where there are large per-customer costs even if there is no customer service or maintenance involved.

GSM-in-FL

MacLeech Losing customers is not bad if they’re unprofitable customers.

lesmikesell No, losing money is worse than not losing money.

That makes no sense.

If I can get Comcast or AT&T Fiber at my address, Comcast would rather me stay with them for $30/month instead of switch to AT&T Fiber and pay Comcast $0.

Why do you think Comcast magically lowered their prices, got rid of the modem rental fee and data cap, and introduced a 5 year price lock once they started losing customers? lol

Comcast would rather me switch to NOW prepaid for $30 instead of switch to a competitor.

hex0101

GSM-in-FL If I can get Comcast or AT&T Fiber at my address, Comcast would rather me stay with them for $30/month instead of switch to AT&T Fiber and pay Comcast $0.

Comcast is offering rack rates to me as an existing customer of 10 years. Meanwhile AT&T is offering faster speeds and for less, powered by PON.

Comcast doesn’t care about existing customers. Otherwise they would be handing out 1 Gbps Internet for $50.00 for 5 years like candy to discourage customers from leaving. Email them, call them up out of the blue and offer a better price or service. Show that you care. Or don’t, and just let the customer cancel the service and switch providers! Existing customers get pooped on, whereas new customers get treated like gold!

Customer Retention in the Big 26. Different companies have different strategies.

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