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Comments on news posted 2006-02-08 14:05:47: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, trying to blow off sinking stock prices, says he isn't worried about the telco entry into the video business. On Fios, Roberts says he doesn't think it shows "economic promise", and believes Verizon will spend "gobs of .. ..
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cdru
Go Colts
Premium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
| Can someone please tell me... Can someone please tell me why a CEO SHOULDN'T be afraid when they lose 21% of their potential market share to the new kid in town? Granted that not all 21% of that number is coming from Comcast, but in 4 months with relatively little advertising (or so I heard), 21% market penetration is excellent.
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"What gives them the right to come in and do this?" she said. - Lady complaining that she was getting FIOS in her backyard. | |
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Varlik
Without Honor You Will Never Be Free
Premium
join:2002-01-06
Anderson, SC
1 edit | Re: Can someone please tell me... Probably thinks and feels that he has "already gotten his" money from this job. That their are other jobs for him else where with his experience so why worry. That in my opinion tends to be the thought process of many top management suites running larger companies.
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"Sir SIR! We don't use DHCP servers. We only use IBM & Microsoft servers." From there my call to tech support went steadily downhill. | |
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Gwailo
join:2000-07-16
Richardson, TX
clubs:
| Also ... The captain of the Titanic laughed off icebergs too.
To be realistic about it, the CEO's of Comcast, Verizon and SBC/ATT are not idiots and all of them with their people are doing a lot of both research and market studies. But all of them are on ego trips and "pop off" from time to time. | |
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AS SOON AS
@comcast.net
| AS SOON AS... FIOS is available here... it's gonna be Bu-Buy Comcast... no more doing business with you guys at all...
TV from VZ; Internet from VZ and phone from whom ever I want...
I hope Brian laughs all the way to the bank as folks drop off Comcast. | |
| Admj
join:2001-01-17
Placentia, CA
| I'm ready to dump my cable for something new or I'm ready to dump my cable for something new or Better! I hate paying $56.00 a month for programs that I don't even care to watch!
Comcast go ahead and laugh, I'll jump ship with you soon enough, then who's gonna laugh? He, He, He...
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www.ca-comp.com | |
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Nhbass
Upside Down Jeep
Premium
join:2001-01-15
Nashua, NH
1 edit | Comcast Around here $39.95 gets me 5mb/1mb DSL. Yes Comcast has the 6mb tier, but it's more money than what I pay now. I have no reason to change (and yes, I left Comcast Broadband 3 years ago for DSL). Still have cable TV, but then again, Dish is not an option for me at the present time.
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In memory of my Father, George Skuse Sr - 8/6/42 - 1/21/05. Gone entirely too early.
May you find a shady spot in heaven and know you are always in my heart.
Edit: This was meant for the Comcast front page story, due to my lousy aim, it ended up here instead. | |
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jasqid
Fiber In Your Diet?
join:2002-04-02
East Palestine, OH
| The PRECEPTION is: most of your network is a monopoly and THAT is the reason you can charge the most. I have no real choice for a broadband provider. Direcway? Pla-eeze. I can do a Dish too, but when you swing it with the increased cost of internet because of a NON-Cable subscriber, you might as well just stay with cable.
If there is no DSL available in your area, this is the case for most people. The money you would save by switching to a satellite is a wash or cost more because of the non-bundling fees of the price. Or original prices of HSD. However you want to look at it, there isn't that much competition.
People in a market that offer multiple boadband provider have leverage to get a better price. My brother in Pittsburgh calls up Comcast every 6 months and tells them he's switching to Verizon DSL and they renew the $29.99 HSD price for another 6 mos. He's been paying $29.99 for 18 months now and it will be up to 2 years in july.
Anyway, comments like that make me mad. If everyone had a choice of 2 or 3 broadband providers, his perception would be different. I know I'm going to get the comments, "You dont have to pay it..." and your are right. But at the moment I am. But, there will be a breaking point. The bubble will pop. | |
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xdeadhead
220, 221, Whatever It Takes.
Premium
join:2000-11-08
Mechanicsburg, PA
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Comcast
| percept this there is also the perception that he is a dick.
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I am not herbert. | |
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fonzbear2000
Premium
join:2005-08-09
Saint Paul, MN
| to my advantage... i have both comcast and qwest available and just switch when the promotional pricing runs out because both r always running some sort of deal for new customers and by the time a deal runs out on one, ive qualified for new customer status on the other  | |
| Anemone1
join:2005-07-26
Billerica, MA
| Cable is gonna get its come uppins The prices are outrageous. The service, and the requirement for you to take time off from work for every ridiculous thing that goes wrong on their end, is highly due for some payback.
I'll leap as soon as it's available. Going to be a funny tune when he's describing to his investors how his customer base is down 50% or worse year on year.
Oh sure, he can believe that won't happen. Fact is, tons of folks I talk to every single day would dump the cable company in less than a heartbeat if there was a viable alternative. If you count the number of folks who took the satellite option, even with the issues it has, imagine what it will be like when there is a BETTER alternative. Years go by and cable raises rates and keeps the service the same. In the 2 years since Fios was begun, you've seen more leaping from the cable companies in terms of services than in the prior 10 years. There is only one thing that gets them to move like that, given how butt lazy they are, and that's fear, pure and simple.
I'll take Fios and never look back. Cable has spent every ounce of my goodwill on beastly price increases, horrid customer service and restrictions, and a cavalier "well so what you HAVE to use us" attitude that they can frankly stuff up their...
Anyway, time to get what's coming to them. Thank goodness for Fios. | |
| GunnarDanne
join:2002-12-02
Crown City, OH
| Their adverstising games ever notice how comcast advertises? i cant remember the exact numbers but its like "comcast is up to 11x faster than verizon dsl" and down bottom they have a little note saying "compared to 768k service". thats like saying a mustang is 50x than a geo | |
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gwion
wild colonial boy
Premium,ExMod 2001-08
join:2000-12-28
Pittsburgh, PA
| Ante up... FIOS future proofs the network. If you have a lot of free cash and know your house needs a new roof, you can usually do worse than putting it on, now, before it starts leaking... your budget reflects that, for a few years, but, in five years, when it would have started leaking, you're better off than your neighbor, who now has to rush around looking for an equity loan to fix the sieve he's living underneath before the open house next month... that's pretty much all I can say.
Cable sells content; they regard the network as a pack mule to carry their product. Telcos sell their network, they've been doing so for years, and have always regarded the content they can offer as icing, not cake. With technologies converging in rapid order, it's a really good idea to create the best network money can buy when the opportunity's ripe, and treat the cost as long term infrastructure capitalization.
I'm personally sort of bullish on Verizon, strictly as a long term investment. I can do a lot worse with my money than investing it in a fire-sale priced stock that's showing me very aggressively where the money's going, and paying me five percent for riding along with their bet on fiber.
The plays Comcast and others are making in terms of publicity are unvarnished appeals to investors to oppose fiberization... which are, so far, falling on deaf ears. Companies like Barclay's p.l.c. (the majority shareholder in Verizon, as of this time, and their last activity was adding to their position) don't solicit advice from the corporate community, they prefer giving it. Why, if it doesn't worry them, do they constantly hammer at the expense and try and portray it as poor shareholder value? If they just don't think it's a threat, they would shrug, and say, "it's no threat, next question". I've yet to hear a cable executive comment on FIOS without getting in at least a sideways shot at it as a "waste of money". Methinks thou dost protest too much... one would think it would really please you to see your competition grinding its wheels in wet sand, after all... they are "the competition", right?
While I wouldn't bet the ranch on any comm play, these days, I certainly have Verizon on my short list as a buy... with the caveat that it's a long ride, not a flip. I look forward to seeing how it turns out, one way or another... but I think fiber, itself, in that long term frame, is a compelling reason to look at Verizon, say, for an IRA or 401k, or for the "nest egg" portfolio... things you want long term growth opportunities.
Would I be buying Comcast? Not the way they're running things, right now... their response to FIOS is to not respond... their response to consumers is essentially to neglect everything they ask for. ... and to make arrogant comments, like, "There is a perception that cable companies have the best products so we can charge the most." 'nuff said. That industry, I see, hasn't changed much (in terms of management philosophies, anyway) since I was doing contract work for municipalities with them, in the early '90's. Same rapier wit, same condescending tone... same damned near paralytic lethargy in the face of rapidly changing technologies.
They'll frankly never understand plant as a worthwhile investment, though... it never became part of their corporate culture, like it did with telcos. Adequate was always good enough for them, long as they were an unregulated virtual monopoly. Only in the few markets where there's real competition for cable service do we see truly high QoS, or genuine efforts to stay on top of plant technology. The focus of cable's always been on content, after all, so I can excuse them for confusing a naked carrier medium with "content"... a telco, on the other hand, like 'em or not, has had a corporate culture steeped in years of common carrier regulation, and tends to see plant as product... which, in this era, it really is.
Mr. Roberts, are you familiar with "Ellis' first law of technology"? Acquaint yourself: "...technology has the shelf life of a ripe banana." You simply can't milk out the last drop of life from an aging infrastructure and stay a contender. I give Verizon credit for recognizing that. Video and internet are icing. The cake is that they'll have the premier state of the art carrier network in America a decade down the road. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're doing a very responsible thing for a company in their business... investing their free cash in their plant.
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Semper Eadem
In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost...
Dante, Inferno, Canto I | |
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