Comcast Loses More Customers, Claims Other ISPs' Cheap Prices Are 'Irrational' (arstechnica.com) 95
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast reportedly plans significant job cuts in its cable division as the firm continues to lose residential broadband and TV customers. Comcast lost 144,000 residential broadband customers in Q3 2026, up from a 91,000-customer loss in the same quarter a year ago, the company said in its earnings report today. Comcast historically capitalized on a lack of competition for high-speed wired broadband. But now it faces stronger competition from fixed wireless providers and from fiber providers in parts of its cable territory. "Fixed wireless remains aggressive and continues to take share, while fiber construction remains elevated, with pockets of irrational pricing and promotional activity," Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said today in an earnings call.
Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said "irrational pricing" from fiber operators includes $30 to $40 monthly broadband offers "in specific markets in the third quarter." He said $30 to $40 pricing is irrational because deploying fiber costs $1,500 or more per home, and is "getting more expensive with construction costs up as you get into more suburban and rural areas." "As we look at the return profile of that, to us, that is irrational competition," Armstrong said. While he didn't name any specific competitors, Verizon has been pitching FiOS fiber plans that start at $30 a month. Comcast's network is a mix of fiber and cable, and it offers fiber-to-the-home in only small portions of its cable territory.
Armstrong said more Comcast customers are leaving when they face "pricing transitions," apparently referring to the price hikes customers get when promotional offers expire. "We've been refining our offers and retention strategies to better manage these transitions and strengthen customer retention," he said. Cavanagh said that "satellite is not yet a material factor" in the competition Comcast faces, but that Comcast is focused on "anticipating emerging forms of competition and positioning our business to respond as the market evolves."
Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said "irrational pricing" from fiber operators includes $30 to $40 monthly broadband offers "in specific markets in the third quarter." He said $30 to $40 pricing is irrational because deploying fiber costs $1,500 or more per home, and is "getting more expensive with construction costs up as you get into more suburban and rural areas." "As we look at the return profile of that, to us, that is irrational competition," Armstrong said. While he didn't name any specific competitors, Verizon has been pitching FiOS fiber plans that start at $30 a month. Comcast's network is a mix of fiber and cable, and it offers fiber-to-the-home in only small portions of its cable territory.
Armstrong said more Comcast customers are leaving when they face "pricing transitions," apparently referring to the price hikes customers get when promotional offers expire. "We've been refining our offers and retention strategies to better manage these transitions and strengthen customer retention," he said. Cavanagh said that "satellite is not yet a material factor" in the competition Comcast faces, but that Comcast is focused on "anticipating emerging forms of competition and positioning our business to respond as the market evolves."
Deal with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast is a big company, if they can't be competitive then it's on them.
$30 to $40 pricing is irrational because deploying fiber costs $1,500 or more per home, and is "getting more expensive with construction costs up as you get into more suburban and rural areas."
Comcast has received decades of subscription fees, and if they didn't allocate part of their budget to infrastructure, they have only themselves to blame.
Armstrong said more Comcast customers are leaving when they face "pricing transitions," apparently referring to the price hikes customers get when promotional offers expire.
Don't blame the customer.
Re: Deal with it? (Score:2)
Re: Deal with it? (Score:5, Informative)
Long Term thinking isn't profitable in the short term. And it is much riskier to bet long term than short term.
The correct view a blend of aggressive short term with long term values.
Comcast could have taken the aggressive short term and built out before anyone else, AND THEN CHARGED MORE while they were still a monopoly. They still have cable in my house, and I've replaced it with faster fiber for less. They simply dropped the ball.
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But those executives need their multi million dollar salaries and bonuses, wonâ(TM)t somebody think of those poor millionaires?
(/s) Look, we all know the millionaires are not the problem. They are the elite of our society. It takes a lot of effort and intelligence to get that far. They know what they are doing. It may not be clear to us, but hey, they are playing 67 dimensional chess! Clearly it is the fault of all those filthy technicians. They should just work harder. Always on their phones, their kids are always sick, ... Jezus! How hard can it be to split a little cable. Fire half of them. That will get the others to work harde
Re:Deal with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Comcast has received decades of subscription fees, and if they didn't allocate part of their budget to infrastructure, they have only themselves to blame.
Bingo, at my old house when ATT ran fiber I switched over from Spectrum immediately. Of course the Spectrum man comes knocking asking what they can do, I explain that fiber is inherently a better tech and then he talks about how they are "fiber backed" and I ask why if they know this is coming why they haven't upgraded to fiber while they've had a decades long advantage and locked in market. What have they been spending their time and money on?
Just the same as they made me so many offers at that time "Gigabit for $30 a month for 2 years! Cell phones! HBO!" and of course I ask "why did I have to leave to get these good deals and when I was a good paying customer you just upped my price every year?"
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Life ProTip: All services using cable modems have been "fiber backed" since the early 2000s. It's called HFC, delivered to the neighborhood by fiber, delivered to the premises by copper coaxial cable.
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That's a life tip?
Re: Deal with it? (Score:2)
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Man, I was actually giddy on the prospect of having to call Comcast and tell them goodbye. Two transfers eventually to the "closer" guy who was offering those exact irrational rates but for a shittier product (500 Mb/s down, who knows up, same old shared copper, lower TB meters vs. unmetered 1/Gbps sync fiber). They did come in $10 lower for 2 years (after which it jumped to 100% higher) He eventually ended it with "yeah I got nothing". (And everyone [well, just me] clapped)
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I had to give that guy the ol "Look, it's not your fault, I know you got a job to do. I don't envy you having to do this."
Seriously, between ATT, WoW, Frontier, CenturyLink my old neighborhood and my new one they really are finally pulling fiber everywhere it seems. Not good if you're the cable company. On top of that whenever anyone on Nextdoor complains about the cable co most people tell them to go to a fixed wireless plan if they don't game.
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If it is its reserved and not capped. I get close to the max every day on bandwidth tests and I have them running during the evening when I'd barely see 25% on xfinity. And everyone I know in the neighborhood has the same plan once it became available - its a no brainer.
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Why can't Spectrum give me a symmetric connection? I get ~700Mbps down and only ~36Mbps up.
The problems are not technology-related, they are policy decisions.
At my last house, I had fiber with a 700Mbs down/700Mbps up connection, but every evening between 10:00pm and 11:00pm it dropped out for 5 minutes.
Re: Deal with it? (Score:2)
Spectrum bought Cox, and now the cheapest Internet service is more than before. Spectrum sucks.
I'm glad I have a price lock for a few years more.
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Re:Deal with it? (Score:5, Informative)
I love how you frame this as Biden's fault. Comcast has received over a half a billion in various subsidies. https://www.usaspending.gov/re... [usaspending.gov]
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Re: Deal with it? (Score:2)
Re:Deal with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Comcast has received 2.6B in subsidies [goodjobsfirst.org] since 1987.
3) Remind us again, how long as Biden been out of office now?
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"Remind us again, how long as Biden been out of office now?"
I'm surprised no one is blaming FDR
Re:Deal with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
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It also doesn't help being the most hated company in America.
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> Comcast has received decades of subscription fees, and if they didn't allocate part of their budget to infrastructure, they have only themselves to blame.
It's a bogus argument but you're missing what they're saying and responding to something else. They're saying it's irrational for a competitor (competitors don't have the infrastructure yet) to sell for $30 a month when it costs $1,500 to install that infrastructure. They're not saying it would be irrational for them to charge it, indeed, they could p
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For the same reason, Verizon and T-Mobile are currently offering "back up" services for about $20-25 on their 5G fixed wireless network. Why? Because every penny that comes in justifies upgrading those towers.
All that is true - and that is all good. In addition, both COX/Spectrum and AT&T offer their own "backup" 5G FWA services, (Spectrum through Verizon towers) and AT&T on their own, private 5G backbone. Efficiency and resilience - to the Moon!
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Comcast is a big company, if they can't be competitive then it's on them.
$30 to $40 pricing is irrational because deploying fiber costs $1,500 or more per home, and is "getting more expensive with construction costs up as you get into more suburban and rural areas."
Comcast has received decades of subscription fees, and if they didn't allocate part of their budget to infrastructure, they have only themselves to blame.
Armstrong said more Comcast customers are leaving when they face "pricing transitions," apparently referring to the price hikes customers get when promotional offers expire.
Don't blame the customer.
The flipside to this is, if they're NOT spending on infra...........why is the price so damn high?
Re: Deal with it? (Score:2)
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Hey Mike (Score:3)
Cry me a fucking river.
It's harder without a monopoly, huh? (Score:1)
Verizon isn't much better (Score:3)
My parents have Verizon and have had them for years. The cost of phone, tv, and internet is roughly $135/month, and that's only for them to get 12 specific channels they choose along with local channels. Neither watch much tv any more which is why they went with this package.
That is still far too much. However, when my dad and I look over what it would cost to drop the tv portion and use something else such as YoutTube TV, they'd only say about $10/month.
We've talked about moving him to Comcast to get the lower rates, but he hasn't made the jump yet.
I have Comcast for internet only and have no problems with them despite the repeated complaints on here.
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Cable modem uploads are still way, way too slow. I thought DOCSIS 3 would have fixed that by now, but it has not.
Re: Verizon isn't much better (Score:2)
Comcast actually has symmetrical gig speed up and down now. The buffer bloat is still a factor though. Of course they donâ(TM)t advertise it until you go to cancel. but still
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I get measured speeds of 2.4G down, 300M up from Comcast for $80 a month. I have to say that works fine for me, even on my remote work days.
No $40 monthly deals have shown up here...
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What you have to do is cancel the service and get new service in another name. Did this back and forth with my wife for a few times because it was close to $50 a month cheaper.
Fixed Wireless (Score:2)
I had that once. It worked well for my needs. But Comcast pushed it out of the neighborhood*. Which is what prompted the local telco to install fiber. Thank you, Comcast.
*Not really "out". They are still here, but do not serve residential customers.
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"We simply can't rent space on poles occupied by our direct competitor. Power company, you choose."
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Comcast is not entirely wrong, in that some ISPs are trying to gain customer scale by using low introductory prices. The same as Comcast does (low introductory rate). While much of the industry agrees that low introductory pricing can result in excessive churn and lower profits, no one has been willing to stop doing so. If Comcast believes what they say, let them be first to offer one prices per speed tier to everyone in a region. No discounts.
You know, there could be something to this, if an ISP calculated out rates, found a "one price, without hikes after introduction" pricing, and advertised it as to what you'd save vs. the competition in a five year period or something. Granted, the whole "this quarter" mentality has penetrated the collective psyche enough that people may not go for it anyway. Hey, I think I finally get what trickle down economics is. All the horrible ideas of the bigger movers slowly trickled down to the rest of us.
Lies and Statistics (Score:2)
I'm certain those numbers for cost of installing fiber are related to rural areas and not the high-density HOAs that are all too common now. 30 homes in a 4 acre plot, that's ~$1000 per month for those homes at just under $35/mo. By my calculations, a 4 acre loop should cost $2000 to run, they would break even in 2 months!!! And I understand that my numbers are ignoring the cost of providing the service, but we all know that they over provision anyhow.
Bad Economics (Score:2)
It looks like the OPEX for FTTH vs Copper broadband is actually quite a bit lower.
This has to do with better basic reliability of FTTH vs Copper, and possibly some energy and field equipment savings.
Anyone in the industry actually know?
So It sounds like if Comcast had invested more in FTTH upgrades (high CAPEX), they'd now be enjoying the lower OPEX that their competitors are theoretically enjoying.
Upgrading infrastructure to FTTH is high CAPEX, but there's usually federal money to help with that in the US,
Re:Bad Economics (Score:4, Interesting)
I was in this industry for a time.
FTTH is prohibitively expensive for rural telecoms, but government subsidies made it affordable. I'm still mystified by the economies of this.
For non-rural areas, Verizon almost financially died from deploying FiOS FTTH. There's a reason they tried and sued to stopped deploying in NYC and sold off other plants to Frontier years ago. (Verizon eventually bought Frontier about a decade later, btw).
The right answer is and always has been Fiber-to-the-Neighborhood nodes and then delivering broadband via copper coaxial cables.
Indeed, for more than a decade, the connection between my FiOS device and my router was a 1 GHz copper coaxial cable.
We have experienced no speed improvements (up or down) when we upgraded to total ethernet from the FiOS device.
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Don't you have to roll trucks more frequently for copper though?
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Truck rolls are mostly dependent on the local plant architecture. If you're stuck with aerial spans, you're going to be doing more repairs and maintenance. Underground spans are generally more robust. This is somewhat true for PON systems, but less so if it was installed properly.
FFTN with local coax distribution is still more expensive to operate than PON. You need to power bidirectional amps in the coax legs so your nodes need to have either a backup generator or a good-sized battery bank. Those amps also
Re: Bad Economics (Score:2)
From what I can see optimum has replaced the coax coming into my home at least twice before I moved in. It was good enough that they didn't have to do it again for me.
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Comcast and Verizon couldn't deploy FTTH cheaply enough because they are such bloated, inefficient companies.
There are lots of little FTTH companies in small towns across the company, like Ideatek in Buhler, Kansas (pop. 1,317). They've been operating there for 25 years and are doing just fine financially, thank you. Also in suburban areas like Spring, Texas (pop. 250,000), similar local companies like Ezee Fiber swoop in and run fiber through entire neighborhoods, then blanket the residents with offers of
Sorry, what? I can't hear you. (Score:1)
Imagine having last mile right-of-way into the largest market of wealthy homes on Earth, and squandering that affordance so badly that you find yourself saying these things. Between Musk solving the rural internet problem, and aggressive fiber and wireless operators dealing with urban areas, Comcast's old and busted coax system is going the way of copper pair telephone service.
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When I last looked at Starlink, they were charging more than Comcast.
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When I last looked at Starlink, they were charging more than Comcast.
Where Comcast is available. Sure. I suspect you're missing some critical information about Comcast availability in rural areas.
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I live in a semi-rural area, which may be why I get good (non-oversubscribed) Comcast service right now. My wife is from a small farming area in northeastern Washington state - even they have had (non-Comcast) cable internet available for 15-20 years.
I'm sure there are places where Starlink was the first non-dialup internet available, but I suspect the list is smaller than you believe it is.
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I suspect
Independent analysis based on Starlink IPv6 traffic estimates there are 4.7 million US Starlink residential subscribers, and that about 2 million came on line in the last year.
I suspect my understanding of the situation is dead on correct; Starlink is filling the vast hole, whatever your "semi-rural" anecdote has you thinking. At an average of 2.53 person's per household in the US, this means Starlink is now the provider of 3.5% of all per capita broadband in the US, and likely to 5% or more inside anot
Maybe don't call it "Fiber Coaxial Cable" in ads (Score:2)
Maybe they shouldn't call it "Fiber Coaxial Cable" in their advertisements.
There is no such thing as "Fiber Coaxial Cable."
At least Spectrum (nee Cox in our area) calls it "Powered by Fiber, delivered by coaxial cable."
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Maybe the jacket has a kevlar fiber for support?
Of course they would do that.
Local Co-Op (Score:3)
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Well, that's because your local co-op FTTH deployment is funded by heavy government subsidies.
FTTH is outrageously expensive.
It's great when you can get it, but the money is real.
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FTTH is outrageously expensive.
No, it isn't. What's outrageously expensive is quasi-government monopolies that are really massive healthcare/retirement benefits companies.
Fiber itself is cheap, as are the electronics on either end of the cable. Trenching can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Trenching gets expensive when it involves legal battles and navigating permitting thickets controlled by local utilities and governments. The actual act of laying fiber in trenches isn't very costly, and doesn't take much time.
Go look
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Well, that's because your local co-op FTTH deployment is funded by heavy government subsidies.
FTTH is outrageously expensive.
It's great when you can get it, but the money is real.
If FTTP were outrageously expensive small providers all over the world would not be able to deploy it. Operational cost savings pay for themselves within a few years and ultimately if you want to offer competitive service you have no choice in the matter.
Comcast is a perfect example of an incumbent sitting on its ass while a rinky dink ISPs nobody has even heard of does a phased deployment throughout town permanently eroding their customer base.
"fiber costs $1,500 or more per home" (Score:3)
No it does not. ATM it's costing down to a few cents per meter (single mode). Equipment are not so expensive as well.
Otherwise we wouldn't have fiber internet here in Brazil every-f*cking-where, usually deployed by "smol guys" companies, even in the countryside and rural areas.
Fiber just can't reach the most remotes retreats in the middle of the jungle. For these places people are using Starlink.
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There's a lot more to fiber internet delivery than the cost of the fiber itself. $1,500 is probably too high, especially if you're using crappy gear and/or have a high subscriber count. But, the per port cost for a residential fiber internet connection is made up of many expenses.
Big, fast, and expensive data center switches and routers.
Pairing agreements or upstream provider fees.
Fiber optic cables of various types and fiber counts.
Labor to string/bury the fiber.
Trucks.
Right of way costs and pole rental.
Le
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I forgot to mention real estate or rent.
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Most of the cost is from digging, not from the fiber. If you coordinate that well with other things that need digging the cost goes down. If not, it goes up. If done well, you end up with something like $1000 per home or below in a city.
Yup (Score:2)
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I can't remember if they're actually using an in-house call center...but a lot of time that happens because it's not an in-house call center. It's some third-party that provides CSR services. So the call center has specific rules that run on top of however the client dictates the account is supposed to behave. Part of the general rules is to verify the call on your screen matches the one on the phone because...guess what....sometimes that shit gets it wrong. Sometimes the call info/entry screen goes to the
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$1500 hook up? (Score:2)
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Your replacement costs are off. Fiber basically lasts forever (Wikipedia says 60-100 years), you typically replace it if you need a different fiber type. That will probably not happen with modern fiber. What you need to replace regularly (every 5 years or so) is the optical components and the switches, but that is a lot cheaper than laying fiber because everything is readily accessible.
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Agreed.
DOWNTIME (Score:2)
That's what's irrational. Comcast goes down more often than Trump says "Bigly". It's constant complete, no signal outages. They can last minutes or hours. You want to charge big rates? Have big reliability.
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When I had Comcast in the SF Bay Area, it was rock solid. Did not go down for months (or years) at a time. However, other people in the same city found it to be unreliable.
Re: DOWNTIME (Score:2)
When I had Comcast in the Bay Area, it randomly dropped one day because they installed the line to the house at a height that a semi driving through the neighborhood likely clipped the line. I was attempting to diagnose the issue from within the house, until I discovered the severed cable laying in the middle of the street.
Awww, poor Comcast (Score:2)
Since when (Score:2)
The pricing is irrational (Score:1)
Speaking of which is a funny thought. If I wrote consumers instead of citizens above I bet it pretty drastica
Good Riddance (Score:2)
I've only ever bought cable internet if there was literally no other option. Case in point, I had Spectrum (not Comcast, but just as crappy) because there was no other broadband in the area. As soon as high speed 5G became available to me I jumped ship. The service is twice as reliable and costs 1/4 as much.
PON Improves Reliability (Score:2)
Comcast's problem is that PONs are significantly more reliable as they don't need all the active equipment distributed across the service area without adequate backup power. They have a lot less system that is more expensive to run, and being the only player was what made their system work. $50 is a reasonable price for service, less for customer acquisition.
Delusional (Score:2)
They think other cable providers are their competition?
HA!
We switched to basic internet, put up an antenna last year, installed Pluto and Youtube.
Hard to compete with nearly free.
"Because I hate you, Trebek." (Score:2)
Never underestimate the power of weaponizing decades of spite.
Raise the price, sure... (Score:2)
For *new* customers. Our current contract is that as long as we never change our service, we keep paying the same price. The lady on the other side of the phone selling us the fiber sounded elated to be giving us that contract as well. We'll never be changing unless they try to start souring said contract. Everybody wins.
Is it really worth losing a customer over $15 a month? Because if and when you do, you now get $0 a month and have to cry to your shareholders that it's all the irrational customer's fault.
Sorry not sorry (Score:1)
Comcast routinely achieves near the top of most hated company lists. People have been chomping at the bit to leave them for years and now that's finally coming to fruition. The moment fiber came down my street I left Comcast. Their BS bandwidth caps and predatory pricing were the main reasons. I have rarely felt so good getting away from such a terrible company. Most likely a requirement of any house I would consider in the future is that it be served by a provider other than Comcast as well. Man they suck.
I left.... (Score:2)
The local teleco switched to Fiber. I get 2Gbps up/down. + phone for $80 a month. I had Comcast Business for $200 a month, I had a 3 year contract for 160 the first year, then 180, then 200. Except it didn't stay that consistent. Their fees increased. the contracted base amount stayed the same.
So I'm saving 140 a month now. i may drop the phone and save another 30. And my speeds are better. So far I haven't had any issues.with reliability. 2 months of service, it's been up while I needed it.
I can'
Looks like Comcast has a cost problem (Score:2)
Note: If you cannot do it at that price, but several of your competitors can, there is a problem on _your_ side.
Comcast WANTS internet to suck... (Score:2)
Comcast WANTS to make the internet suck so that you are more likely to buy cable TV.
Boo hoo (Score:2)
Cry me a river.
Comcast/Spectrum just bought Cox. And my Cox bill is already over $200 a month for BASIC cable, downsampled to just 720p, at a low bitrate, and 300Mbs down internet for one person. And that is with their best "loyalty" discounts. So yeah, I am right on the edge of dropping cableTV, especially since the only reason I have it is because of love TiVo. TiVo is essentially dead (I still have service, but they don't sell boxes anymore). Cable TV has always been very hostile to cablecard device
Fuck them! (Score:2)
Again: fuck comcast!
Fiber is cheap... (Score:2)
Honestly, it's not that much more expensive per foot. Also, in a lot of places, the last run isn't super long anyway. And the distance before you hit fiber is shorter and shorter in a lot of cases.
Also, the services are simple. You get a dynamic IP (more if you want a static IP). That's it. No email, TV, phone. Comcast has way more complex infrastructure and that's on them. They also got used to renting equipment and making money on getting dimes and quarters here and there. My fiber installation fee came w
Daily T3 Critical Time-Outs (Score:2)