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Businesses Television The Internet

Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers At Comcast 140

Posted by samzenpus from the binge-watching dept.
mpicpp notes that for the first time, the country's largest cable provider has more internet subscribers than cable subscribers. The Internet is taking over television. That shift is occurring at Comcast, where the number of people who subscribe to the company's Internet service surpassed its total video subscribers for the first time during the second quarter this year. Announced in an earnings call on Monday, the development signals a major turning point in the technological evolution sweeping across the media business, as the Internet becomes the gateway for information and entertainment. Comcast, the country's largest cable operator, abandoned its $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable last month after the deal drew regulatory scrutiny regarding concerns that the combined company would have too much control over the Internet. Comcast is already the country's largest broadband provider, with more than 22 million high-speed Internet customers. Brian L. Roberts, Comcast's chief executive, said in the call that the company was disappointed about the collapse of the deal but had moved on. He said that Comcast's top priorities now were to advance its existing business and improve its poorly rated customer service.
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Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers At Comcast More

Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers At Comcast

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  • No suprise. Comcast TV is poor value for money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @05:49PM (#49616777)

    I'm a Comcast customer. Despite the horror stories they've largely been fine for me and I haven't had any major issues. I have their 100Mb service and consider it on the high end of being a reasonable value. I only subscribe to one of their low end TV packages (costs about $35/month) because their TV offering are WAY overpriced for what you get. There are about 10-15 channels I give a crap about and I'm not willing to pay more than I am now. I've thought about dropping the TV altogether but I do like to watch some TV now and then. TiVo makes it bearable to do so. A package with more channels would double the price I pay and I'd get maybe 3-5 extra channels I might watch. Just not good value.

    Basically I'm waiting for ala-carte TV or a service through our network connection that provides basically the same thing. (No Netflix, Hulu, etc aren't there yet) I consider TV a frivolous luxury and I'm not about to drop $200/month for a bunch of channels I'll never watch.

    • Re:No suprise. Comcast TV is poor value for money (Score:4, Interesting)

      by spire3661 ( 1038968 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @06:05PM (#49616893) Journal
      What is your UPLOAD speed and DATA CAP? Download speed is not the only metric of internet service. I get 100 down but only 10 up for almost $80/month. I dont consider it a good value because the upload is so low.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by sims 2 ( 994794 )
        comcast isn't available here and since i can't get actual broadband at home ill tell you what i can get at work suddenlink for business cable max speed i can get is 8/1 for $134.95/mo att uverse ip-dsl max speed i can get is 12/1 for $55/mo ($40/mo after discounts for having phone service $5 and promotional rates $10) diamondnet city fiber lowest speed i can get 10/10 for $54.95/mo highest speed i can get 50/50 for $156.95/mo keep in mind none of the 3 have any usage caps for business and the city fibe

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by raind ( 174356 )
        54 up / 23 down according to Speakeasy.net/speedtest. Don't know the accuracy of that . Also pay 100 plus a month.

      • I have TWC and I watch the hell out of Netflix, for $35/mo. It's 15 mb/s, 10x what I paid AT&T for (1.5mb) for $49.

        It;s not Comcast, but it seems relevant since the merger was given the big finger.

        What's my upload? I'd rather not upload one goddamned thing. How does my upload matter? I don't give a shit. My Netflix experience hasn't suffered, and for fuck's sake I don't intend to create more content than I consume.

        Do you?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by sims 2 ( 994794 )
          nah but online backups would be nice or just being able to get large files from home or work in under an hour example its faster to drive to work and back than download a 700mb iso file i have saved there

        • Re:No suprise. Comcast TV is poor value for money (Score:4, Insightful)

          by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) * on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @08:34AM (#49620209)

          What's my upload? I'd rather not upload one goddamned thing. How does my upload matter? I don't give a shit.

          Upload speed matters in the sense that the Internet was supposed to be a democratized peer-to-peer infrastructure that would enable global dialogue, while you're apparently content for it to be "just another entertainment service" dominated by oligarchic commercial interests.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

        comcast's caps are 300 gig a month

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bengie ( 1121981 )
          It was a rhetorical question. I can blow through 150GB in a day, not even downloading. Someone on DSLReport is on Google Fiber and nearing 300TB/month. Don't ask, don't tell. Caps are stupid for most situations. Hell, I pay $90/m for a 100/100 dedicated uncapped connection will not have congestion, ISP does not oversubscribe. They don't even differentiate between business and residential because all residential customers have business quality Internet. All they sell is "Internet". You can purchase an SLA wi

      • What is your UPLOAD speed and DATA CAP? Download speed is not the only metric of internet service. I get 100 down but only 10 up for almost $80/month. I dont consider it a good value because the upload is so low.

        I don't even care about your problems a tiny, tiny bit. My best internet option is $65/mo for 6/1 from a WISP with egregious downtime and customer support to rival comcast (Digital Path.) Quit your crying.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjbe ( 173966 )

        What is your UPLOAD speed and DATA CAP?

        My service is 100 down 20 up. There might be a cap but I've never run into it even when I used services like Netflix. I don't do stuff like torrents or running servers, etc. Your mileage may vary but it's fast enough for my needs in both directions and the price is manageable at ~$90/month. Not cheap but reasonable value to me given my needs and lifestyle.

        The TV on the other hand is a terrible value to me. For $30/month I get maybe 2-4 hours of entertainment per week out of 30-40 channels. I could pay

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bengie ( 1121981 )
          I pay as much as you do, except I get a dedicated connection with sub 1ms pings, no cap, symmetrical, no-bundling required, non-intro price, no funny fees, bill hasn't changed in years, and I bet my jitter to nearly anywhere in the world is less than the ping you get to your first hop. You're getting ripped off.

          • Well that fortunate for you but there aren't any realistic alternatives where I live. So what do you suggest I do about it? I'm perfectly well aware that some places have better service and/or better prices than I do at my residence.

            The only competition to Comcast in my town is Frontier Communications DSL service which is much slower and not any cheaper for similar speeds. I think their fastest service where I live is 20Mb down/3Mb up. And that's it for landlines. I could go cellular but that is very e

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bengie ( 1121981 )
              I was mostly replying to your "Not cheap but reasonable value to me given my needs and lifestyle.". Just because it's "reasonable" to you doesn't mean you're not getting your fair share. I am glad that you're at least content with your services, or at least sound to be.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            Where do you live and how much does it cost to move there?

      • I have the 50mps Comcast service and it's never 50mps.

        It's more like 20mps to 30mps downstream at any given time.

        Uploads are typically 10mps to 20mps.

        Plenty fast for me, but would be nice to get what I pay for...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Comcast isn't so bad *if* you don't have issues. If you do, you will hate them. Their customer service is one of the worst I have encountered. (A recent run with Expedia indicates that Comcast has challengers for the title.) I had Comcast up in Michigan and it was really good. I moved here to Texas and the equipment is horribly outdated. My box is from 2008, has 24 hours of HD recording space (despite them saying it had 60), drops the HDMI signal at least 3 times per hour of content, and looks like it

      • You don't know what bad customer service is until you have dealt with AT&T. I have had AT&T and Comcast and AT&T is worse.

        • Re:No suprise. Comcast TV is poor value for money (Score:5, Interesting)

          by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @08:08PM (#49617663)
          I was told something was "impossible" 10 times, until I got tired of their lies, and sent a complaint to the FCC, local regulator, and multiple departments in SBC (formerly and finally ATT), and within 48 hours of dropping a letter in the mail, the service was fixed, and a couple days later, a letter came indicating the problem was fixed and essentially gave a script to read from when the FCC contacted me.

          From "impossible" to "done" in a few hours, once I sent a letter to the regulatory bodies. They won't do the job they are required by law to do, unless threatened with legal action. And, sadly, that was my best experience with ATT, as the problem was fixed, even if it took them 6 months to fix their DSL service, and required I send letters to the national and state governments.

          • I don't get it. Are you citing that as an example of how AT&T is worse than Comcast? Because it isn't -- I've had send complaints to regulators to get Comcast to do shit too.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AK Marc ( 707885 )
              I've never lived in Comcast's or TWC's coverage areas. I've never had cable.

              The issue wasn't that I had to send a letter, but that ATT lied to me for almost a year. They claimed something was "impossible" then did it in a few hours, when I stopped asking nicely. It was a small technical tweak on my line that didn't even need a truck roll. And it was to change it back to the original config. It worked great when I signed up, then they broke it and refused to acknowledge they broke it, until they fixed it

              • Alright, here are some of my experiences with Comcast's evilness (not including the "normal" and endemic DNS hijacking, Bittorrent and Netflix throttling, and secret data cap issues that Slashdot has reported on, of course):

                1. I called up Comcast to negotiate my rate, and the customer service rep offered me $19.99/month (for I think 20Mbps internet). When I got my first bill, it was for $60+. I called to complain, and (after escalating to a manager) was basically told that they did not offer such a rate, th

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AK Marc ( 707885 )
                  Sounds pretty bad, glad I never had the option to buy from them, so never even faced the temptation.

    • "Basically I'm waiting for ala-carte TV or a service through our network connection that provides basically the same thing. (No Netflix, Hulu, etc aren't there yet)"

      SlingTV (from Dish Network)

      • SlingTV (from Dish Network)

        Looked at it but not really quite there. As far as I can tell it doesn't work with my DVR or provide equivalent functionality and the channel list is worse than what I already have for not much less money. Some channels prohibit you from pausing, rewinding or skipping commercials. Not really a great deal to me though I do see the appeal to some.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bondsbw ( 888959 )

      I want service and infrastructure to be separated.

      I like the idea of IPTV, and AT&T's U-Verse TV service is completely IP-based. So why do I have to have U-Verse Internet service? If I can only get Comcast Internet at my home, then why am I limited to Comcast TV? Why can't I subscribe to U-Verse TV over the Comcast lines?

      That is just an example. The same principle could be applied elsewhere... such getting DirecTV over cable lines or cable TV over satellite. The point is, you should be able to choo

      • I want service and infrastructure to be separated.

        Agreed. I think we (as a society) should be dropping big money on rolling out fast connections everywhere we can and those connections should be independent from the content providers. Companies should be allowed to do infrastructure or content but not both.

        Basically I should be able to choose my data pipe and choose my content and switch either without it mattering. If I get unhappy with Comcast I should be able to switch pipes to AT&T or Verizon without anyone knowing or caring aside from a few rou

      • I like the idea of IPTV, and AT&T's U-Verse TV service is completely IP-based. So why do I have to have U-Verse Internet service?

        Probably because multicast doesn't work over the public Internet. It works only on a particular ISP's network.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by edremy ( 36408 )
      Ironically, I recently switched to Comcast (105 Mbps) and ended up with the basic channel package. The way the teaser rate worked is that is was actually a lot cheaper to order the two bundled than the bare internet line- it was $10/month less plus $40 less on install.

      Only thing I have to do is cancel the basic cable after year 2 on the contract. I'm not looking forward to that...

  • Comcast (Score:4, Insightful)

    by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @05:50PM (#49616781)

    improving poorly rated customer service runs contrary to the comcast business model of doubling your bill after your 2 year deal is up.

    I dropped cable because my $80 a month bill went to $160. There is no other isp in my area, so comcast can charge whatever they want. If comcast wants to improve customer service they first have to stop raping their customers.

    • Not to worry, fellow subscriber! I got them back real good; Comcrap was the only game in town for a while and I had to get some service from them. After the initial install was having some bandwidth issues they found that my cable run from their street-hole was not in a conduit and was just bare coax under my lawn. So they spent a couple of days and many hundreds of their dollars installing brand new conduit (right thru the lawn and a paved driveway), brand new coax, brand new demark boxen... then I cancele

      • You previously had their BETTER installers then. It's not been unheard of that installations from the islands are run over the grass...If sufficiently nestled down between blades, the coax often survives a few mowings...

  • The customer improvement goal is (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    to get one positive review from a Comcast customer. That will indicate that enough time and effort has been put into customer service re-training, and that resources can be reallocated to find new and inventive fees to add to your bill.

    • to get one positive review from a Comcast customer. That will indicate that enough time and effort has been put into customer service re-training, and that resources can be reallocated to find new and inventive fees to add to your bill.

      I think it's one articulate positive review, something they can use in marketing materials.

  • Improving customer service will only happen when.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grimmjeeper ( 2301232 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @05:54PM (#49616817) Homepage
    ..there is actual competition between cable companies. When you have a monopoly in an area, you have no incentive to treat your customers well.

    • ..there is actual competition between cable companies. When you have a monopoly in an area, you have no incentive to treat your customers well.

      I've been thinking about this. It's true, but I wonder how things will change when all the cable companies are competing to provide you only with basic access to the internet. Then it becomes just another commodity, like phone or power, and there is very little room for differentiation.

      The thing about basic internet is that it's very easy to quantify. You can get measurements of *true* performance from third parties for free. This makes it harder (but not impossible) for a company to claim 100/100 when

      • Re:Improving customer service will only happen whe (Score:5, Interesting)

        by grimmjeeper ( 2301232 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @06:52PM (#49617177) Homepage

        Thing is, every cable TV provider is trying to sell "value added" internet. They want you to use (i.e. subscribe to) their particular service instead of using a competitor (like Netflix). That's the whole reason for their fighting against being classified Title II. They want to restrict/block access to competitors so that you'll either pay more for their service or pay just to access competitors.

        What I'd really love to see is for internet access to become a true utility. Break the connection part of the business from everything else and regulate it just like the electric or gas company. Set a rate schedule and minimum throughput for various tiers of service. The only thing they do is provide you a connection to the net and that's it. Then all content providers (the other side of the cable TV company as well as everyone else) would compete on a level playing field. Your connection to any of them is exactly the same. They would have to compete based on what content they provide and how much they charge.

        Managing cell phone networks would be a fair bit more complicated since they already operate in each other's territory and there isn't the kind of monopoly that exists in local cable TV markets. That would require more thought than I'm prepared to give it right now. But certainly you would want to break the service providers apart from the content creators to ensure the providers don't discriminate against where the traffic is coming from.

        But there's less profit in net neutrality and true competition which is why the various companies want to keep the status quo and they're fighting hard to protect their revenue streams.

        You are right. It will be interesting to see how things work out in the next couple of years.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Aw shit! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @05:56PM (#49616823)
    Aside from the worthless programming, the endless vaginal mesh and mesothelioma lawsuits, the Marcus and Mack and Edgar Snyder sue someone anyone commercials, Its the best friggin thing going!

    I find myself watching youtube videos for my video, "normal TV is damn near unwatchable, with a 50 percent commercial rate, you can forget what program you were watching.

    • You forgot to mention the commercials where they advertise going to those godawful payday or title loan places to get money to pay your bills. Yeah, it's a fucked up world.

      • You forgot to mention the commercials where they advertise going to those godawful payday or title loan places to get money to pay your bills. Yeah, it's a fucked up world.

        'Cause its my money and I need it NOW!"

        J G Wentworth, taking money from idiots.

        • The worst one was where they advertised a guy who took out a loan to fill up his car. Yes, the car he probably just hocked the title to. I actually yelled "Are you fucking kidding me?!?" at my TV.

          • In fairness, that really isn't the fault of those title loan places...

            Those people are there because they have made a whole series of really bad choices prior to that last bad one...

            I have a family member who does that, and no matter how much money you give him, he ends up broke. He'll always be broke, and he has a college education. He simply can't hold on to money.

            My family stopped giving him money a long time ago (he is about 50 now), and he currently rents a single room from someone and works a $12/hr

            • In fairness, that really isn't the fault of those title loan places...

              Those people are there because they have made a whole series of really bad choices prior to that last bad one...

              Although there are a lot of factors, like not stopping to figure out the nasty effects of "easy payments for the rest of your life", and trying to live a lifestyle that is beyond their capability, I'm pretty certain that at base, its a matter of some people being unable to delay any gratification.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

            The worst one was where they advertised a guy who took out a loan to fill up his car. Yes, the car he probably just hocked the title to. I actually yelled "Are you fucking kidding me?!?" at my TV.

            My favorite is the title loan one (it may even have been title loan restructuring, now that I think about it) of the guy with 2 young kids in a 2500+ sq ft house washing a car that is at most 1-2 years old. You might want to try downsizing before you enter into a predatory title loan with near userious interest rates.

            I also love the radio and tv commercials advertising "low" rates of $200-350 a month on car leases, while I am driving a brand new car for $125 a month that I will have paid off less than 1.

            • The worst one was where they advertised a guy who took out a loan to fill up his car. Yes, the car he probably just hocked the title to. I actually yelled "Are you fucking kidding me?!?" at my TV.

              My favorite is the title loan one (it may even have been title loan restructuring, now that I think about it) of the guy with 2 young kids in a 2500+ sq ft house washing a car that is at most 1-2 years old. You might want to try downsizing before you enter into a predatory title loan with near userious interest rates.

              I suspect that is marketing, to try to make a lot of potential customers believe that that well to do looking guy in the big house uses the service, so they don't have to feel so bad.

              Of course, instead of living beyond my means I actually live below my means so I am not stressed out at the end of every month waiting on a pacheck to pay bills.

              Absolutely. When I was in the market for a house, I waited until the market was right, then I bought a house for about 50 K less than what they would loan me. Which by the way, really pisses off real estate agents! Even then, I bought used cars, saved my money, and sleep well at night.

      • Payday loans as a lifestyle (Score:4, Informative)

        by justthinkit ( 954982 ) <floyd@just-think-it.com> on Monday May 04, 2015 @08:11PM (#49617685) Homepage Journal
        Ohio -- more payday loan vendors than McDonald's, Burger King & Wendy's...combined.

        In Oklahoma, more borrowers use at least 17 loans in a year than use just one.

        In 2006 the Pentagon found that payday loans were "becoming a threat to readiness" and tightened up the rules on loans...to military personnel.

        - all three from yesterday's NYTimes weekend magazine

    • I find myself watching youtube videos for my video, "normal TV is damn near unwatchable, with a 50 percent commercial rate, you can forget what program you were watching.

      Agreed wholeheartedly. But then, I don't want to watch many shows. I want to mostly watch car stuff, and that is now better on youtube than it is on TV. I get both higher-quality video and more variety of content — which is also higher-quality than what's on TV. I mean, even when Top Gear was still a thing, they only did a handful of shows in a series anyway. You had to have something for the rest of the year.

  • More people watched Mayweather vs. Pacquiao last Saturday night on illegal online streams than on Pay-Per-Views. TVs as we know it are dying.

    • I'm not a fan of boxing so I didn't care to watch it. Nor do I have cable TV so I couldn't have watched it on PPV. But even if I was a big fan and I had cable TV, there's no way in hell I would have shelled out the $90 (+$10 for HD) they were charging for it. Not saying I would have streamed it illegally. But given the outrageous price they were charging, it's obvious why so many people did it. Ironically, had they charged a much more reasonable price, they number of people streaming it illegally would
      • The cocaine-huffing media executives don't think that way. They're still living a few decades ago when they had a captive audience they could gouge with impunity. Back then, the only real piracy of live events going on was the occasional guy with a dodgy cable hookup.
        • Not just that. They look at it like everyone who illegally streamed the fight would have been a paying customer if they didn't stream it. In reality, if it weren't an option to stream it illegally they wouldn't have watched it at all. No real revenue was lost in that case but the executives can't figure that part out.

      • > no way in hell I would have shelled out the $90 (+$10 for HD) they were charging for it.

        I don't watch professional sports, but I do see my neighbor's house fill up with half a dozen cars at the appropriate times. I always assumed for PPV events, people would just pack in at whoever's house had the best TV and couches and split the cost. $16 a head is not too painful.

  • > for the first time, the country's largest cable provider has more internet subscribers than cable subscribers

    Oh thank God. Does this mean that the Comcast salescreature who leans on our doorbell monthly will stop trying to push cable on us? I have to es'plain to him each time that we have this thing called an An-Ten-Na that receives digital TV Foooorrrrrrr Frreeee-eeee-eee. ...and incidentally, anything not available on the antenna is (eventually) available on our internet connection (fiber to the do

    • I have to es'plain to him each time that we have this thing called an An-Ten-Na that receives digital TV Foooorrrrrrr Frreeee-eeee-eee. ..

      Gotta give a shout-out to trying an antenna. I cut the cord a year ago and have been surprised by how good TV can be the way our grandparents used to watch it. Of course, YMMV, but in my area, all the major networks come in great, full non-compressed HD. There are even some local channels broadcasting some cool stuff to catch. And who knew that a flat-screen TV actually has a built-in tuner?

      The cabling that used to feed my cable box now connects my TV to one of those flat, indoor antennas, which I posit

  • Doesn't this just mean that the number of people that have just internet are now more than the number of people that just have cable? If the FCC prevented bundling it would have happened years ago.
    • I'm willing to speculate that when you remove the people who have both CATV and internet and focus on people who have just one of those two services that there are more people with just internet than people with just CATV.

  • Not necessarily! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Monday May 04, 2015 @06:33PM (#49617063) Journal
    Several years ago, as a cost-cutting measure, I put up an antenna and got rid of Comcast cable TV. Too many channels I was ostensibly paying for but never ever watching. I'm perfectly happy with OTA broadcasts and the local stations, major networks. I'll supplement that with a small amount of programming from the Internet, but not anywhere near as much as you might think. I think I'm not alone in this, I think many people are going back to OTA broadcasts for the one-time cost of an antenna and saying 'FU' to cable and satellite costs, it just doesn't show up as much because beyond the cost of the antenna there's no subscription for anyone to track. I also cite ventures like Aereo, which despite their being killed off, showed that there is a market for OTA broadcasts still. I think this is the direction things are -- and should -- move back towards. Honestly the picture quality of OTA DTV is better than cable or satellite anyway, no re-compressing happening.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      I actually prefer Hulu and web sites for shows instead of OTA right now, because there are only 1-2 commercials per break instead of 5-7.
    • I built my antenna out of about $10 of scrap metal, a coax splitter/balun, and some solder. The most expensive bit was a 20ft coax cable needed to reach my TV. The one-time cost is nothing.

      • i bought mine new for $20 (Mohu Leaf) on sale and it includes the coax cable. the price of these things are dropping fast.

    • My own story, in a nutshell. I had Comcast in my own town, and through a couple moves the same story happened. Each time I've said I want only internet, and they come out and disconnect me completely, i call them back, a goon comes out and reconnects and I have TV too. Funny thing is, an ex I had was fundamentally opposed to TV for whatever reason, so I kinda stopped watching it myself. That was 8 years ago. Now I'll watch the occasional thing on Netflix, maybe a few youtube channels, but that's about it. I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wbo ( 1172247 )
        If I remember correctly, if a cable company carries local OTA channels they must offer those channels to all subscribers at no additional cost and cannot restrict access to those channels.

        In practice, that means that if a cable company rebroadcasts local OTA channels they are usually unencrypted on the wire whereas the rest of the cable channels are usually encrypted.

        That also means that even if your have Internet-only service, you can usually plug the cable into a suitable tuner (which some TVs have

  • Any chance Comcast will look at where their customers now lie, decide they're now an ISP with a side business in TV rather than a cable company with a side job in internet, and stop raping the quality of their internet to drive customers towards their cable offerings, and give up on those silly plans to become a competitor to Netflix et al. because they feel lonely without the ability to cram their own ads into something that's already overladen with advertising?

    No chance? Didn't think so.

    • TV is a high profit partially exclusive business with little competition, internet is a low profit comodity with lots of competition. Why would anyone choose to abandon all that money?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        You don't abandon it. But you don't punish your low-margin customers because your high-margin business model is failing.

        • You clearly don't understand business. Not like an MBA does.

          / Worked for an MSEE/MBA who couldn't design his way out of a paper bag, and thought the solution to low revenue from low sales due to high prices was to bump his per-sale margin from 200% to 300%. I questioned this move and that was the answer I got.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            I am an MBA. And you don't understand anything because you are too tied up in the "us vs them" ideology.

      • Internet is a MUCH more profitable business than cable television. For every dollar a customer pays for TV, Comcast pays ~60 cents right out the door to the content guys (Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, etc.).

        • For every dollar a customer pays for TV, Comcast pays ~60 cents right out the door to the content guys

          And collects how much from local advertisers? Cable operators are allowed to preempt a small number of commercials each hour.

          • Advertising isn't big $ for cable companies. For every $10 in video subscription revenue they generate, they get about another $1 in advertising revenue, of which they keep around 75 cents.

  • I don't have a TV subscription and haven't DVR'd a show for years, but I was talked into subscribing to HBO NOW by the girl because she wanted to watch Game Of Thrones because all her friends were watching it. HBO NOW is pretty good - like Netflix and Prime but with a few better movies and some material they make themselves. What I can't work out though is that half the "seasons" seem to be only a few episodes long. It's like they haven't finished shooting them or something. Take for example, Silicon Valley

  • You need internet. Cable-TV is a grossly overpriced luxury.

    With a digital antenna, and services like hulu, and every channel having it's own website: you can watch practically anything with cable-tv.

    I have a Roku, and use my PC as a Plex server. I have not missed cable at all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gnupun ( 752725 )

      You need internet. Cable-TV is a grossly overpriced luxury.

      Cable/Satellite/OTA are broadcast mediums where one signal is transmitted to almost unlimited viewers whereas internet TV is a unicast medium where a every internet TV viewer has to be allocated some bandwidth from the source. If everybody ditched cable/satellite/OTA and switched to the internet, the bandwidth consumed would probably bring down the internet.

  • It's not enough to be the worst customer service in the USA, they want to improve their "poor ratings" to be the worst company in the entire world (while still only operating in a single country).

    Their internet service will become so bad that they will bring the entire internet down with them, drawing in poor reviews from all corners of the globe.

  • Sure you might only get 2-10 Mb/s download compared with other countries many thousand, but the ping times are unrivaled outside a university. If you want high end gaming, it suffices... Part of me longs for 8000 Mb/s internet with low latency because I'm sitting on networking code for an action based MOBA which could allow more players in the same zone than there are people living on Earth now. Forget 64 player limit FPS, have everyone on a single server in a single zone kungfu fighting. But another

  • Order business class internet, try to order TV with it.
    Have fun!
    Too much work for me, I skipped it. Plus, what a rip!

  • Number of actual TV subscribers is probably lower (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Comcast offers me $1 less per month if I bundle Internet with basic cable. I never use the basic cable. So I'm counted as a TV subscriber even though I don't need or want it. So I suspect the count of TV subscribers is inflated.

    • Comcast offers me $1 less per month if I bundle Internet with basic cable. I never use the basic cable. So I'm counted as a TV subscriber even though I don't need or want it. So I suspect the count of TV subscribers is inflated.

      I had a similar deal for quite a while. They changed their pricing scheme last year, so it's finally cheaper to get internet without cable. So I guess that means I just recently cut the cord, even though I haven't actually had a TV plugged into the cable for several years now.

    • Same here. We cancelled cable awhile back.

      Then Comcast started offering us TV + Internet deals that were cheaper than just our internet.

      We signed up for that deal to save money. We don't even have our cable box connected. We're not using the TV service.

      But we get counted as a subscriber. They are totally cooking the books. They have far less real subscribers than they report.

      • Don't let them give you a set-top box. Make them give you a CableCard instead, and take a stand for the spirit of "any lawful device" [arstechnica.com] (which should have been applied to cable companies, but hasn't).

        Also, they'll tell you the box is "free," but if you swap it for a CableCard they should give you a discount.

  • I know this is practically blasphemy on the internet... but I actually read the original article. I so doing, I found something particularly confusing about it: While it leads off with that "Internet Customers Surpass Cable Subscribers at Comcast" headline, it then proceeds to say the following further in...

    "... At the end of the first quarter, Comcast counted 22.375 million video customers and 22.369 million high-speed Internet customers. ..."

    I mean, sure... It's been quite a few years since I took a m

    • On their conference call, they said that, since they were essentially tied at the end of 1Q, it's reasonable to assume that, by now, they have more Internet than TV customers.

  • Currently the internet is taking over television. Unfortunately this is a temporary situation. Once the telcoms, ISPs, etc get enough lobbying money funneled into congress, net neutrality will disappear and cable TV will be back in business bigger than ever. With their monopolies on internet access, ISPs will be able to control what you see, and when you see it; will be able to insert advertising wherever and whenever they want; and will be able to charge you an arm and a leg for it. The future of the i

  • comcast is its own worst enemy. I have Comcast tv and internet, but I can't even give the TV cable away. Because of the bundled price, I wouldn't actually save any money but cutting the TV cable, but I rarely watch it because Comcast downgrades HD to SD in the hopes that I'll pay another 10 bucks a month to get HD back. I'd rather wait a day and watch it in HD over the internet. Fuck you Comcast. I hope it was worth the extra $120 a year to alienate customers, because as soon as I get any sort of choice in

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