comcast

FCC wholesale word games will kill retail competition

7 April 2017 by Steve Blum
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Looked at one way, the draft decision to lighten regulation of wholesale broadband services that’s been floated by the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission isn’t a lot different from the one proposed by the old chairman. Both versions backed away from regulating prices or terms for higher speed, dedicated industrial-grade connections – those faster than 45 Mbps – while keeping some controls on slower services based on legacy copper technology.

Current chairman Ajit Pai wants to back further away than Tom Wheeler, the guy he replaced, did.… More

Muni broadband endorsed by Comcast, again

26 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Comcast jumps on board.

Are you wondering whether or not you live in a place where Comcast will soon upgrade at least some of its broadband infrastructure and technology to the high speed, DOCSIS 3.1 standard? All you have to do is check to see whether there’s a municipal broadband project underway nearby. That’s a very reliable way to gauge the esteem that Comcast bestows upon your town.

According to a story by Daniel Frankel in FierceCable, Chattanooga, Tennessee is the next stop on Comcast’s DOCSIS 3.1 road trip, where it will begin offer much cheaper 1 gigabit service to homes and businesses…

Comcast had been delivering its pricey 10-gig fiber service to local Chattanooga businesses, and 2-gig fiber service to local residences.

… More

Competition, and something more, drives Comcast upgrade in Huntsville

15 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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Demand.

Chalk up another win for broadband competition. Comcast announced that it was expanding its next generation – DOCSIS 3.1 – cable modem footprint to Huntsville, Alabama, and would be offering gigabit-level service to at least some customers. Details on service locations, roll out schedule and prices were lacking, though.

What clearly isn’t lacking is a competitive threat. Huntsville’s publicly owned electric utility is in the process of building a fiber to the home network that will be operated by Google Fiber and offer gigabit service at about half the price that Comcast charges in the four cities where it’s already offering it.… More

Cable, mobile companies fight California rural phone standards

8 February 2017 by Steve Blum
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A California Public Utilities Commission decision slamming the practices of telecoms companies in rural areas – like attaching lines to trees instead of poles – and requiring carriers to notify both the commission and the state office of emergency services when significant telephone outages occur has been met with a broadly based challenge from California cable and telephone companies.

In a filing authored by Comcast lawyers and joined by Charter, Cox, small telcos, Verizon’s fiber subsidiary and lobbying fronts for the cable and mobile industries, the CPUC’s rural call completion decision was characterised as illegal on the basis of a long list of alleged procedural mistakes.… More

Haven't seen the facts about AT&T, Time Warner merger, Trump says

19 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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Translation: never mind.

Donald Trump is backing off from his stated opposition to the AT&T – Time Warner transaction. According to the Axios blog, Trump said in an interview…

“I have been on the record in the past of saying it’s too big and we have to keep competition. So, but other than that, I haven’t, you know, I haven’t seen any of the facts, yet. I’m sure that will be presented to me and to the people within government.”

… More

Yuge telecoms companies expect to get yuger

19 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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Big money is leaning in the direction of a permissive, rather than populist, Trump presidency, at least when it comes to big telecoms mergers. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson met with Trump last week. Although both AT&T and Trump’s team insist that the pending acquisition of Time Warner wasn’t discussed, Stephenson continues to project optimism that federal regulators – the justice department’s anti-trust unit and, possibly, the Federal Communications Commission – will allow it to go forward.… More

Comcast accused of not doing an inside job

20 December 2016 by Steve Blum

Getting ready for the service call.

What, exactly, is inside wiring? That is the $3.6 billion question facing Comcast in Seattle. The Washington attorney general is accusing Comcast of offering a bogus $5 a month service plan and wants a King County judge to impose the maximum fine – $2,000 each for the 1.8 million violations of the state’s consumer protection law.

According to a story in Geekwire by Nat Levy…

The lawsuit alleges that Comcast marketed the service plan to customers as a “comprehensive” option that promised to cover service calls without additional fees.

… More

Comcast uses monopoly muscle to claw back profits from cord cutters

9 December 2016 by Steve Blum
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Odd. He always seems to win.

Comcast’s operating profit drops by $5.50 every time a customer cancels bundled television service and goes with Internet service alone. That’s according to a story by Daniel Frankel in Fierce Wireless about some back of the envelope modelling done by Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett. His conclusion is that bundling prevents cord cutting, and I think he’s right. But another way of looking at it is that Comcast – and its mega-cable brethren – are using their monopoly control of high speed Internet service to extract significant rents – profits beyond what a competitive market would allow – from consumers.… More

Advertising group sides with Verizon, slaps Comcast Internet claims

25 September 2016 by Steve Blum
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When elephants mud wrestle.

Comcast’s advertising claims that it “delivers America’s fastest Internet” and “the fastest, most reliable in-home WiFi” aren’t supported and should be pulled. That’s the finding of the advertising industry’s self-regulation board, called the National Advertising Division (NAD). Responding to a complaint filed by Verizon, which naturally would prefer you think it has the fastest Internet service, NAD said Comcast used dubious data to back up its pitch…

As support for its claims that XFINITY delivers America’s “fastest Internet,” Comcast relied on crowdsourced data from Ookla’s “Speedtest” application.

… More

Broadband gets lowest satisfaction rating of any industry in latest survey

18 June 2016 by Steve Blum
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Click to download the study

Consumers are a wee bit happier, on the average, with Internet service providers, but that’s not to say happy, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) telecommunications company rankings. Overall, Internet service providers get an average score of 64 (out of 100), up one point from 2016. It is the lowest industry average of all those ranked by ACSI. Subscription TV companies – there’s quite a bit of overlap, of course – are nearly as bad on the average, getting 65 out of 100.… More