Comcast President Bemoans Broadband Customer Losses: 'We Are Not Winning' (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0177142883
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/25/2129256/comcast-president-bemoans-broadband-customer-losses-we-are-not-winning
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/after-losing-customers-comcast-admits-prices-are-too-confusing-and-unpredictable/
> Comcast executives apparently realized something that customers have known and complained about for years: The Internet provider's prices aren't transparent enough and rise too frequently. This might not have mattered much to cable executives as long as the total number of subscribers met their targets. But after [1]reporting a net loss of 183,000 residential broadband customers in Q1 2025, Comcast President Mike Cavanagh [2]said the company isn't "winning in the marketplace " during an [3]earnings call today. The Q1 2025 customer loss was over three times larger than the net loss in Q1 2024.
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> While customers often have few viable options for broadband and the availability of alternatives varies widely by location, Comcast faces competition from fiber and fixed wireless ISPs. "In this intensely competitive environment, we are not winning in the marketplace in a way that is commensurate with the strength of the network and connectivity products that I just described," Cavanagh said. "[Cable division CEO] Dave [Watson] and his team have worked hard to understand the reasons for this disconnect and have identified two primary causes. One is price transparency and predictability and the other is the level of ease of doing business with us. The good news is that both are fixable and we are already underway with execution plans to address these challenges." [...]
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> Cavanagh said that Comcast plans to make changes in marketing and operations "with the highest urgency." This means that "we are simplifying our pricing construct to make our price-to-value proposition clearer to consumers across all broadband segments," he said. Comcast last week [4]announced a five-year price guarantee for broadband customers who sign up for a new package. Comcast said customers will get a "simple monthly price starting as low as $55 per month," without having to enter a contract, giving them "freedom and flexibility to cancel at any time without penalty." The five-year guarantee also comes with one year of Xfinity Mobile at no charge, Comcast said. [...] Additional offers are in the works, Cavanagh said. "We are not done. Providing more value to our customers with less complexity and friction is a top priority and you will see our go-to-market approach continue to evolve over the coming months," he said. Comcast investors shouldn't expect an immediate turnaround, though. "We anticipate that it will take several quarters for our new approach to gain traction and impact the business in a meaningful way," Cavanagh said.
[1] https://www.cmcsa.com/static-files/7f0f826a-6462-426b-a767-cb3170d7cdf0
[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/after-losing-customers-comcast-admits-prices-are-too-confusing-and-unpredictable/
[3] https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/xurtaib2/
[4] https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/comcast-launches-five-year-guarantee-for-xfinity-internet-customers
It's stupidly expensive (Score:1)
That's the problem. Cable internet doesn't cost anything more to provide than any other internet provider but it's twice the price. You get faster speeds but honestly once you get above 100 megabits per second there isn't a lot of reason to pay for more unless you're running a business.
Re: (Score:2)
Moving from 300 to 1000mbps is noticable.
Probably less so if I went up to 4000 though. Would need to upgrade all my local network.
It's an interesting time when residential internet speeds are faster than standard consumer network equipment.
Google Fiber (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would anyone use Comcast if there is Google Fiber. Which has been a steady $70 for 1gpbs for like 10 years with no price increses, and I respect that.
Re: (Score:2)
As a Comcast customer, if there was literally any other provider I could use that wasn't named "Starlink" I would. But:
- my neighborhood has no fiber, even though fiber providers exist in the city.
- my neighborhood has no PSTN service, even though that service obviously exists in the city, but my neighborhood is a small street of 7 houses which were built about 8 years ago, and the contractor didn't put in any PSTN service in any of the houses.
- my neighborhood is in a hilly geography, and the house was bu
Re: (Score:2)
External LTE antenna?
Re: (Score:2)
What viperdaenz said. I have Comcast and Verizon available, but no way I'll deal with either of those robber baron criminals.
Cell signal drops rather suddenly right at my house. Additionally the house is aluminum sided, so inside the house cell is dead. So, I bought a "booster", more properly called (in radio terms) a repeater. I forget which one I have, but it works like a charm.
I didn't bother mounting the outdoor antenna outdoors. The kit came with a suction-cup window mount and I have good signal with t
Re: (Score:3)
A couple years ago Google Fiber went in on my street. Spectrum was playing all sorts of games at something like $100/mo for asymmetric bandwidth, and it would go off randomly in the middle of the night for sometimes hours. I switched over to Google Fiber and it's been a steady $70 or so for gigabit, barely ever fails, and runs a lot better.
When I called to drop Spectrum, suddenly they offered to upgrade me somewhat and drop my price down to $39.95 a month. I asked them why, if they had that service, I hadn'
Re: (Score:2)
Do they still offer the cheaper service where you moved to, or are they illegally abusing a monopoly?
Only offering a cheaper price where there are alternatives is monopoly abuse.
Americans are getting screwed big time (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it so that it costs whooping 55 usd while in europe the connection costs 10-20 bucks, no matter wherher it's optic fibers or dsl, or even mobile
Re: (Score:2)
We absolutely are getting screwed. Internet connection providers are either monopoly or duopoly in America. Providers are for-profit companies. IMHO, Internet connection is practically essential to life these days, and providers should be regulated, and non-profit, open-books.
Problem is, and Comcast is a great example: Comcast and others have been around for a long time providing TV and movie channels. They figured out how to tack Internet connection onto their existing cable infrastructure. So it looks lik
what about dropping the caps? (Score:2)
what about dropping the caps?
Voted the worst company in the USA... (Score:2)
For over a decade plus. And executives are all walking around wondering "Why don't we have any customers?" LMMFAO! What goes around. Comes around. ;-)
Translation (Score:2)
> ... both are fixable ...
Our business model of treating people like serfs is failing because people are putting a higher price on their time and dignity.
Light bulb or dim bulb? Or dark (money) bulb? (Score:2)
Comcast executives also apparently didn't want to realize all of the dark money they've poured into anti-municipal-broadband bills they've been sponsoring all over the country because competition is, apparently, hard. Comcast President Mike Cavanagh would rather legislate or litigate competition out of the way rather than give everyone in the country access to affordable, usable, decent broadband. So there's that too. I would highly recommend against giving Comcast any of your money unless you have no ot
Fuck Comcast! (Score:2)
I had Adelphia before they fell apart and were bought by Comcast. Anytime I called Adelphia about an outage I got a credit. Once Comcast bought them the reliability got much shittier and I didn't get any credit for downtime. Then the price increases started. After that, they started taking away things like Usenet. Then the ever increasing prices. Oh, and that awesome customer service. I likened their customer service to be about as good as Cambodia under Pol Pot. Did I mention the constant price increases?
Shocking... (Score:2)
When Ziply Fiber came into town, gave it a shot. Never looked back. 2Gig symmetric plain old internet for very reasonable prices. Coax just can't handle it.
Maybe (Score:2)
trying not to be the most hated company in america would help
Stop being shitty. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit playing games with your customers, specifically "Pricing Roulette" with your new customer deals that current customers aren't eligible for. Nobody likes to be the wallet getting soaked while you try to bilk other people into the same game with a better deal. Make your price be your price, and if you can't compete on that price then maybe that should tell you something about your operation.
Quit screwing around with offering OMG MEGA DOWNLOAD SPEED that nobody can actually achieve on their wireless devices that are predominantly used, while limiting upload bandwidth to what was awesome 20 years ago and causing video conferencing to take a crap if you dare have two or more users on the connection.
Quit being a shitty provider that people only use at last resort because there's no competition. It should inform you where you stand if one of your markets gets a new competitor and everyone with a clue runs away from you as fast as possible - I know I would if any of the fiber operators in my city would string some fiber up into my neighborhood.
Fuck Comcast.