Comcast Keeps Losing Customers Despite Price Guarantee, Unlimited Data (arstechnica.com) 79
Comcast's attempt to slow broadband customer losses still isn't stopping the bleeding as fiber and fixed wireless competition intensifies. In Q4 2025 alone, Comcast lost 181,000 broadband subscribers, even as it leans harder into wireless bundling and other business lines like Peacock and theme parks. Ars Technica reports: The Q4 net loss is more than the 176,000 loss predicted by analysts, although not as bad as the 199,000-customer loss that spurred [Comcast President Mike Cavanagh's] comment about Comcast "not winning in the marketplace" nine months ago. The Q4 2025 loss reported today is also worse than the 139,000-customer loss in Q4 2024 and the 34,000-customer loss in Q4 2023.
"Subscriber losses were 181,000, as the early traction we are seeing from our new initiatives was more than offset by continued competitive intensity," Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said during an earnings call today, according to a Motley Fool transcript. Comcast's residential broadband customers dropped to 28.72 million, while business broadband customers dropped to 2.54 million, for a total of 31.26 million.
Armstrong said that average revenue per user grew 1.1 percent, "consistent with the deceleration that we had previewed reflecting our new go-to-market pricing, including lower everyday pricing and strong adoption of free wireless lines." Armstrong expects average revenue per user to continue growing slowly "for the next couple of quarters, driven by the absence of a rate increase, the impact from free wireless lines, and the ongoing migration of our base to simplified pricing." Comcast Connectivity & Platforms chief Steve Croney said the firm is facing "a more competitive environment from fiber" and continued competition from fixed wireless. "The market is going to remain intensely competitive," he said.
"Subscriber losses were 181,000, as the early traction we are seeing from our new initiatives was more than offset by continued competitive intensity," Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said during an earnings call today, according to a Motley Fool transcript. Comcast's residential broadband customers dropped to 28.72 million, while business broadband customers dropped to 2.54 million, for a total of 31.26 million.
Armstrong said that average revenue per user grew 1.1 percent, "consistent with the deceleration that we had previewed reflecting our new go-to-market pricing, including lower everyday pricing and strong adoption of free wireless lines." Armstrong expects average revenue per user to continue growing slowly "for the next couple of quarters, driven by the absence of a rate increase, the impact from free wireless lines, and the ongoing migration of our base to simplified pricing." Comcast Connectivity & Platforms chief Steve Croney said the firm is facing "a more competitive environment from fiber" and continued competition from fixed wireless. "The market is going to remain intensely competitive," he said.
they already jacked their prices to beyond stupid! (Score:3)
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Maybe Comcast should raise their bullshit fees again to make up the loss. Seems to be their "go to" move to boost their earnings. I mean, what can go wrong?
Re: they already jacked their prices to beyond stu (Score:3)
LOL price guarantee (Score:5, Insightful)
As T-Mobile taught us, price guarantees are worthless. Verizon charges an economic conditions fee regardless of guaranteed prices.
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As T-Mobile taught us, price guarantees are worthless. Verizon charges an economic conditions fee regardless of guaranteed prices.
Yep, contract law is to protect the businesses from you, the little people, when they screw you over.
Hell, even here in the UK it's only been a year since mid contract price rises have to be expressly stated in pounds and pence (actual money) instead of vague allusions to a percentage.
They're double ultra deluxe fucked. (Score:2)
I'm trading one asshole for another. AT&T is currently ripping up my neighborhood, laying fiber. Nearly 20 years after they said they would.
They likely won't lose the elderly, inertia and all that. But I'll jump ship the instant it's declared 'stable'
AT&T has an shit router unless you bypass it (Score:2)
AT&T has an shit router unless you bypass it and don't get that air shit (lower caps / not an real IPv4)
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You won't get real legacy IP with most new providers these days, at least not without playing extra - sometimes a lot.
The only reason companies like comcast can offer it is because they got huge allocations back when that was possible, and since their customer base is declining they have plenty spare.
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I pay $90 for 5gb/5gb fiber that usually performs at least 4.7gb each way on average. I pay $275 a year for visible for my phone.
Before that I paid $139 a month for xfinity 'gigabit' internet which was at best 600mbps/30mbps and $100 a month to verizon for cell service.
I'll keep the fiber and verizon's own MVNO which has performed as good as verizon every day for the last 2 years.
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When Metronet came through my area I'm fairly sure every single person switched. I haven't seen a Xfinity truck in ages out here.
The fun part was comcast knew about it, so they went down the street and installed the underground pull boxes to try to stop it.
Metronet saw the other side of the street was better anyways and installed their pull boxes. Those comcast ones have been empty now for years.
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Quality (Score:2)
Maybe... just maybe... they shouldn't have god awful fucking shit quality service, both the ISP connection itself, and their customer service !?
chickens coming home to roost at spamcast (Score:5, Insightful)
They've spent decades abusing their customers (and everyone else) with their endless corporate bullshit, network abuse, price hikes, service outages, etc...
And when people start finding reasonable alternatives, SURPRISE.... They take advantage of them.
Thats what happens when you lose your monopoly spamcast. The second I was able to get fiber at my premise, I dropped them the same day.
Got 3 times the speed, for half the price. Latency also dropped quite a bit too.
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I'm one of them (Score:5, Informative)
Last year I switched from XFinity broadband to a local company called Ezee Fiber. XFinity kept raising their prices, they make it all but impossible to bring your own devices (cable modems), and there were numerous service outages. The last straw was when service went out on a Friday, and they said they could come out and take a look at the problem by the next Wednesday. Instead, I switched providers, and had my service up and running the next day. Plus, it was 5x faster (5 GBps) and came with a WiFi 6 router with no monthly rental fees. I did not save money on the new service, but the customer service is 10x better. So far, I'm very happy with the switch.
must be nice to have an local company with fiber (Score:2)
must be nice to have an local company with fiber not all of us have that. For some it's comcast or slow DSL maybe an 2th cable co.
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Nice, but I had to wait years before it arrived.
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Yeah, they literally just laid fiber in our neighborhood a couple of years ago. For many years, Comcast was the only option.
Funny thing is, after EzeeFiber came through the neighborhood, AT&T decided they'd better get in on the act, and they too laid fiber. But while EzeeFiber took a month or two to lay fiber to 2500 homes, AT&T took a couple of years, and hit several gas lines in the process. Still having three options is nice, and keeps prices down.
Re:I'm one of them (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no fan of Xfinity, but i had them for about 15 years until about 4 years ago and bringing a modem wasn't an issue. First i had some "Surfboard" and later bought a Netgear DOCSIS 3 from Costco. They were both fine. (only issue was that you had to call them to provision because they lock to the first MAC address they see).
My main problems with them: ... "sometime". (deployment has been slow). ... and saying that you should do this because it'll make your SuperBowl watching experience better somehow.
a) very asymmetric. slow upstream. even at 1+Gbps down it's like 30mbps or 40mbps up. It's _mostly_ fine but if you have a number of people in the house it can get saturated esp. in these days of video streaming and uploads. DOCSIS 4.0 will fix that
b) Their ads are basically lies. like telling you to upgrade to "10G wifi" (by which they mean their 1-2 Gbps down cable service on their network that has a 10Gbps backbone... and w/ a wifi gateway)
And this has been going on for YEARS. idk why the FTC or FCC doesn't smack them down.
c) pricing is high for what you get... esp. if renting equipment. and esp. if you JUST want internet.
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Your experience with bringing your own equipment doesn't match mine. Sure, they "officially" said you could do it. But then when something didn't work, the answer from support was always "sorry, we don't support that modem" even though it was on their approved list.
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that sucks. Fortunately they never pulled that with me even on the few occasions when there were some connectivity stability issues. (and more fortunately i seemed to be on a pretty good "port" and things were reasonably stable for the Internet side.)
On the TV side it was more a mixed bag. unexplained hours long outages a few times a year. support would want to schedule a tech.... I'd defer.... service would be back the next day. this was the same through like 3 STB's over years so I suspect it was all
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I haven't had any problems with them for the last 10 years with my personal modems, but I luckily haven't had any modem problems either, so that may be the saving grace.
In my neighborhood they are by far the best choice, because sadly no one else wants to come here. I get 2100/40 Mbps (up says up to 300 but I've never beat 42, my speed test always hits 2100-2300 down though). I pay $85 on an older plan and I DO have a data cap, but I paid ~$40 last year in total overages. I do see if I swapped to a new p
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I get 2100/40 Mbps (up says up to 300 but I've never beat 42, my speed test always hits 2100-2300 down though).
have you pinged them about that upload? that 40 mbps looks VERY suspicious and suggestive that they didn't fully upgrade the config on your account when you upgraded to this plan.
see e.g. https://forums.xfinity.com/con... [xfinity.com]
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> they make it all but impossible to bring your own devices (cable modems)
I've never had a problem FWIW. I've been using my own devices since I started with them nearly 15 years ago. Never even had a Comcast rep try to get me to switch to one of their's. I'm not sure where you're getting this from.
The prices rises, sure. The outages... compared to who? They don't seem to be worse than my old DSL service, and they're definitely better than my T-Mobile Home Internet backup service, which crashes regularly
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Sure, if everything works, you can bring your own device. But if it doesn't work (which happened to me), and you need support, they just say "well, that's not our device, so we can't help you." And it doesn't matter that the device is on their list of supported devices.
Huh... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Man... the South Park episode about Comcast enjoying their customers' pain was epic....
relevant clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
(from "Informational Murder Porn" ep. apparently released 2013)
Space internet is the future (Score:3, Insightful)
10,000,000 satellites in space beaming internet. And no they won't Kessler-ize. They won't collide often either as they will be placed in low earth orbits fifty to a hundred miles from each other (space is huge). That's the future.
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Space will always be slower. There's only so much radio spectrum. There's no point having satellites 50 miles apart, they'll be getting signal from the same customers, so the same bandwidth is shared. You'd need some fancy beam forming tech or tracking antennas to mitigate that. And you're also sharing bandwidth with an entire neighbourhood.
Re: Space internet is the future (Score:2)
How does a terrestrial antenna deal with that?
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Re: Space internet is the future (Score:5, Informative)
Is this sarcasm? 10,000,000 satellites would cost trillions of dollars, and hundreds of billions of dollars per year to replace failing satellites... There probably isn't enough launch capability in the world to maintain such a network. I don't know why you would choose starlink over any terrestrial service with comparable speed. It's a niche product for rural customers and underdeveloped nations. I wouldn't be surprised if it's only "profitable" due to some sort of clever accounting where costs are hidden elsewhere.
Fiber to the home is the way to go.
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So? A trillion spend would be less than global 5G deployment cost to date (which is terribly spotty coverage). By the way any rational examination of this would show deploying those 10 million satellites will cost about half a trillion at most ($50k per satellite, of which $20k is the launch cost on Starship). Note: A mass produced satellite should actually cost way less than $30k per (they don't use any fancy materials). Also, I am assuming the satellite will weigh more than a Starlink v2 mini AND assuming
Re: Space internet is the future (Score:3)
Total bullshit. SpaceX current cost is 500-1000 times that. A terrestrial cell tower costs upwards of a million dollars, and that isn't for spaceworthy hardware that must run for years with zero maintenance, nor including all the satellite specific hardware that has nothing to do with providing service.
Those costs are as likely to happen as Elon is to make good on any of his full self driving, robotaxi, or Optimus promises.
You probably think he will be launching AI datacenters to space, too.
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Sure sure .. remember people like you thought Falcon 9 would never work .. or that electric cars would never be rid of range anxiety.
Cell towers don't cost a million dollars. Stop lying. https://patentpc.com/blog/5g-i... [patentpc.com] They cost $100k to $200k .. most of which is because of construction costs .. each tower has to be built on site with a team of construction workers. It's like building a house. Satellite production can be fully automated. Note that to swap in 5G hardware to a 4G tower the cost is only $20k
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You also lied about SpaceX current costs. First off, SpaceX charges much less than $5k per kg. It's more like $2.5k per kg .. but remember SpaceX internal costs are likely much lower. They only need to charge their $1 less than their nearest competitor. How do you reckon SpaceX found the CapEx to launch 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit AND develop Starship??
Re: Space internet is the future (Score:2)
assuming launch cost of $20 per kg which is actually double the $10 per kg that both Stoke Space and SpaceX are claiming they will achieve with re-usable flight.
What? I can put a Kg in orbit for $20? That's close to first class postal rates, that seems a bit off... SpaceX Falcon Heavy costs $1,400 per Kg today [nextbigfuture.com] they plan/hope to reduce that cost in the future...
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Falcon 9 charges $1400 per kg only because there is no competiton. They used that money to develop Starship and launch Starlink (10,000 satellites).....It's the whole point of Starship which is fully re-usable to bring the cost down to $10 per kg. Same with Stoke Space's Nova rocket.
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assuming launch cost of $20 per kg which is actually double the $10 per kg that both Stoke Space and SpaceX are claiming they will achieve with re-usable flight.
What? I can put a Kg in orbit for $20? That's close to first class postal rates, that seems a bit off... SpaceX Falcon Heavy costs $1,400 per Kg today [nextbigfuture.com] they plan/hope to reduce that cost in the future...
The very same article discusses future costs potentially plunging below $20 per kg for the next SpaceX generation (Starship): “It would [require] about 70 flights [of reuse per Starship] to get to costs per kilogram 100 times less (1% of the cost) of SpaceX Falcon Heavy.” Note that some Falcon boosters have already achieved about thirty reuses.
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Huh? There's less lag than terrestrial. Are you think of GEO satellite internet? These satellites are in LEO .. there's a big difference.
"Intensely competitive" (Score:5, Interesting)
I used them for several years, and they dropped out nearly every time it rained. Which wasn't just an inconvenience - I work from home.
I got a second ISP account with a local provider, who didn't have the best reputation for reliability, but I used them as a backup.
After I set up monitoring on the lines I realized my connection to the local ISP was actually really stable, and dropped Comcast.
It was a great decision. No calling to negotiate the price down every year, it works in the rain, and the people there are really nice. They cost about 1/3 what Comcast charged, too.
Hey Comcast (Score:2)
You burnt too many bridges over the last 20+ years. Now you wonder why customers are leaving when they can. As soon as fiber became available in my area I instantly switched. It's less than half the price, many times faster, and far more reliable. Oh, and my fiber provider has a TRUE price guarantee. What is advertised is what I pay, not a penny more, and in over two years now no price increases. You're a relic Comcast ... bye bye. Your asshole ways did you in.
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Fast forward 2 hours later, oh soooooo many mandatory router restarts, and the service rep. telling me that they have to send out a service tech. to determine what's wrong with my kit. She assured me that there would be no charge for this unless it's something wrong inside the apartment, in which case I would be charged for the tech.
While she was "checking with her s
Oh No! (Score:3, Funny)
Anyway...
[insert appropriate gif here]
Support your local co-op ISP (Score:2)
Reap what you sow (Score:5, Interesting)
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Let's add that they don't truly have unlimited, and if you want truly unlimited, you need to pay for truly unlimited... Huh fuckers. Another $50!
Plus, their cable upload sucks. We're among the people who moved away from Comcast 1gb down/100mbps up... and were paying close to $200/month for truly-truly-really-unlimited to now $95 for about 750 Mbps download/upload via fixed wireless. So far, it's been working great.
truly unlimited is a myth (Score:2)
No such thing as truly unlimited...every line has a rating and there are only so many minutes in the day.
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They abolished overages a year or two ago, thank god.
Honestly the only issues I have with them are their reputation for making it impossible to leave (haven't tried to yet though), and their constantly rising prices.
I have some other issues but these are cases where other ISPs aren't any better:
- Not able to unblock port 25 (not against it being blocked by default, but there's no reason I shouldn't be able to receive email)
- Vague rules about "servers" which completely undermine the point of the Internet. I
It's not just their prices (Score:1)
I used to live in the US (Score:2)
I had Comcast. I signed up for some reasonable price agreed on the phone, then they started sending me bills for about 250 USD (for internet + cable).
Eventually I switched to a local competitor. They offered Ethernet to my apartment, with unlimited IPv4 internet IPs with no NAT (seriously) for only 60 USD/month. On top of that a few extra bucks for streaming services and it's better service for half the price.
Then Comcast in their genius tried sending me to a debt collector.
F*ck Comcast (Score:2)
Are they still asymmetric? (Score:2)
Their standard service was still 8 times slower on upload versus download the last time I checked.
Despite the pandemic showing us that we need two-way video to do virtual anything, so service is limited by the slowest data direction.
I'm considering moving to a senior living place in the next year or so. One sticking point is that their building ISP is Comcast.
I'm a software engineer - my work network meetings are mostly audio and screen sharing, so I can tolerate asymmetric data, barely.
My wife is a sign l
Re: Are they still asymmetric? (Score:2)
Yes, on cable they are. I have their fastest service which is 2 Gbps down. Upstream is about 300 Mbps. I wish it was symmetrical.
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I comcast can be fine for upstream video. Id say your concerns are misguided if you think the involvement of FIOS is gonna fix them.
Performance is only part of the equation (Score:2)
Their history of poor customer service and the talk of data caps means people are doing exactly what they should: shopping elsewhere.
Contract shenanigans (Score:2)
Have not ended. You still have to call every year to stop your bill from doubling. A few years ago, they wouldn't budget on the price. I ended up switching to a fixed wireless ISP. It sacked, sadly. I'm back on Comcast. Currently at $80/month on 2 Gbps/300 Mbps.
Their advertised price is now $100/month with 5 year guarantee. I would not take that deal now if my contract ended.
Comcast deserves to go out of business. (Score:2)
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Indeed. This is why they rebranded to Xfinity. But the word has gotten out on that, too.
Their network assets should be turned over to smaller local providers, perhaps municipal, that actually care about their customers.
They're literally the most hated company in USA (Score:2)
I expect them to be overpriced and under featured. However, like a legacy airline, I also expect them to have their shit together and be reliable. I expect them to deliver what they offer. I may
Everyone knows Comcast is terrible. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much universally, everyone hates Comcast. Their business model has for years been, "do everything possible to suppress competition, then raise prices and reduce the level of service". Everywhere they're being competed with, they have excellent service and low prices (and are fighting hard to get other players out of their market and lobbying against municipal broadband). Everywhere else, you pay them because they're the only option, and you get what you get.
Now they're starting to notice that when large swaths of their customers have *any* other choice, even if it's a worse one on paper, they'll leave. When you force people to be your friend, they're not your friend and they'll resent you forever. All this time they'd have done better to be loyal to their customers, if they wanted to see that loyalty back from them.
You want people to stick around? Don't merge your support and sales departments. Don't offer price guarantees then break them. Don't degrade traffic to website that haven't paid you a kickback. And, jesus christ, gigabit service should never, ever struggle to keep up with *netflix streaming*.
Comcast is beyond shady. (Score:2)
Comcast tried to block the installation of Utah's UTOPIA fiber network, somehow forgetting the same easements that allowed their cable lines to be run on utility poles allowed UTOPIA to do the same. As a result, symmetrical gigabit service at home costs $65 per month while Xfinity costs almost $100 with upload speeds of only 24mbit even with gigabit level service tier and they push sooo hard to sell you a package deal with cable and phone service that almost doubles your bill after the introductory period.
Fiber fiber fiber (Score:2)
Switched from Comcast to AT&T fiber a little over a year ago. Bypassing their gateway with a custom SFP module. Literally get 125% of advertised speeds, symmetrical, 24/7, zero outages, working IPv6 PD. All for the same price as service from Comcast advertised as the same speed but delivering about 25% down and 10% up.
I kept getting emails from their marketing department saying "your cable modem is too slow", despite having purchased a DOCSIS 3.0 gigabit modem. Felt big brother-y and greedy. Didn't like
Well, Spectrum is picking up a lot of new ones (Score:2)
Recently moved to a Spectrum area (Score:1)
It's still cable, though, and my upload rate is pretty slow, and it seems to have frequent micro-drops in service. My phone likes to nag me when there's a break in wifi internet access.
No major outages so far, at least. My last address was CenturyLink, and that had multiple o
I used to be big comcrap hater (Score:4, Informative)
A decade and half later I am married and now live in Comcast's hometown. They have the two tallest building in Philly. They are the only game in town for faster than gig service on our block, so reluctantly we signed up (in my wife's name incase they have notes on my bitter breakup with them). I have had the cable going to my house knocked out twice in the years I have been here due to falling branches. Both times they have fixed it free of charge in less than 24 hours. The second time burying it. We pay less here for the service than we did for google fiber in my home city. Though fiber was just as fast with upload speeds, where Comcast is not. I am not saying I now love Comcast. Just that perhaps if they had the same level of service and pricing nationwide the do in their home city, they probably would not be one of the most hated companies in the nation.
Meanwhile 5G Home, Fiber, and Satellite . . . (Score:2)
. . . picked up several million U.S. customers:
- 5G Home over three million
- Fiber about four million
- Satellite over a million
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. . . picked up several million U.S. customers:
- 5G Home over three million
- Fiber about four million
- Satellite over a million
That’s for all of 2025.
This Deal Convinced Me to Switch TO Comcast (Score:2)
I'm not even joking.
I am well aware of the Comcast's LONG-STANDING and VALID reputational issues... but the deal was too much to pass up. My offer was for 1Gbps at $50/mo. The price is locked in for 5 years and I'm not bound by contract. The gateway is included. This is in contrast to my prior ISP where I had one-tenth the bandwidth, paid 40% more per month, and had older gateway with less WiFi range.
We're better off today with Comcast, but I'm not loyal to anyone. The second they try to pull the rug, we're
It's the content... (Score:2)
If one was willing to sign on with Comcast for only internet and nothing else, their prices would be far more reasonable. Start adding all the over priced content, and Katie, bar the door. I have internet only from a pure play internet provider, an antenna on the roof and will soon be down to one streaming package...
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I have internet only from Comcast. Still too expensive, and they jack the price every year, but it's totally available.
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The second biggest determinate of cost would be "equivalent" competition. Only have a fiber provider, meh, only have cable, meh -- but if you can get fast internet from two providers (i.e. fiber AND cable) -- things get a lot more interesting...
I'll Never Again Give Comcast My Business (Score:1)
Comcast had a monopoly on good broadband in my area for nearly 20 years, and in my opinion they exploited that monopoly to vastly overcharge their customers. After alternatives finally came to the market (a municipal fiber option), I switched immediately, I also noticed that Comcast *finally* were forced to lower their prices to stay competitive. The cost *difference* was over a $1000/year. So basically, from my perspective, Comcast overcharged me the cost of a vehicle.
So even if Comcast ends up offering a
Incentives don't make a difference (Score:2)
what's it for (Score:2)
Comcast broadband is for fixed computers. People are just mainly using their phones and tablets and don't necessarily need a fixed location broadband service, especially not at Comcast's prices.