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 funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5 | reply to ComcastFTW
Investors call Brian Roberts' tenure a "Comcastrophe" said by ComcastFTW :
funchords: I really hope you are right about the stockholders being upset with him, he has done more to tarnish this company in one year then in the last 5 years combined.
1. »Comcast Issues Blanket Response to Concerned Investors
2. »blogs.computerworld.com/comcasts···d_pickle
3. »www.philly.com/philly/business/2···urt.html
Yeah, investors are angry -- the salve for angry investors is returning either higher stock prices or dividends.
Investors aren't believing a word of what Comcast has to say. They could announce a contract tomorrow to wire even room in Heaven for Triple-Play, and the stock price won't react because credibility is so low.
Dividends -- profit paid out to investors -- cannot lie. Cash on the barrelhead is always credible.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. | |
| Thanks for the links, they are very telling, I am more optimistic that they may tell him to kick rocks.
This quote from the second link pretty much explains why they decided to go with the Sandvine approach instead of building up the infrastructure.
quote:
Comcast is feeling the pressure. Its traditional business is shrinking. It lost 94,000 cable subscribers last year. It did gain 331,000 new high-speed Internet customers in 2007, but the rate of growth has been declining, slowing by about one third over the previous year. That's probably one reason why investors aren't so hot on seeing more money poured into broadband infrastructure capital projects. Comcast continues to mine revenues from its existing broadband infrastructure by stealing away teleco customers with its digital telephone services, but the company does not appear to be interested in pushing basic broadband infrastructure deeper into rural areas, and efforts to provide higher speed Internet services in metro areas aren't exactly surging ahead.
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CorydonCultivant son jardinPremium
join:2008-02-18
Denver, CO | reply to funchords
Read the links you posted. Institutional investors could care less about BT, P2P or throttling. Most only care about customer service insofar as it impacts the bottom line.
"Cable investors have complained about expensive upgrades sapping free cash flow..." They want a return on their investment. They are concerned that Comcast is spending too much on their infrastructure, not too little. They want that money to go to them (in the form of stock buybacks and dividends), not to improving the service.
The institutional investors are not your allies in the fight against P2P throttling. On the contrary, they are probably your biggest enemy. | |
funchordsHelloPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Yarmouth Port, MA
kudos:5
2 edits | said by Corydon:The institutional investors are not your allies in the fight against P2P throttling. On the contrary, they are probably your biggest enemy. Wow, you would have nailed me with that except for the fact that I never said that they were allies. (And my fight has less to do with P2P as it does with Network Neutrality.)
I invite you to step back to THIS MESSAGE and its replies. You will see that I never claimed their support.
But now that you bring it up -- allow me to explore an interesting side-street with you.
That said, most investors (and especially Institutional Investors, which you are also somehow arguing over although I never mentioned them) buy a stock like Comcast because it's a growth stock with a wide diversity of products and services. When they buy such a stock, a dividend or a buyback is not expected. They expect to make their money on price appreciation.
For whatever reason (and I have some biggies in mind), investors now see that growth is not coming. So they have two ways to get some of their money back:
1. Ask for cash (dividends). Cash is great because it is its own proof. Cash doesn't care what the talking heads say about why the stock is going to surge.
2. Ask company to repurchase stock. Buybacks are good because the company itself is snapping up stock, which leaves less stock available for buying on the market. As you know, the price of anything (even stock) rises with scarcity.
But the buyer should beware. Dividends and buybacks aren't nearly as good if we're just replacing one cash-generating device (buying back stocks) with another (selling new debt or hanging on to old debt). Comcast is about $30 billion in debt, so where does the cash for the stock buyback or dividends come from? Answer: When there is debt present, it doesn't matter. Just like your household checkbook, you either slow-pay Visa to buy that new Blu-Ray player or you charge it onto your Visa and pay for it later (plus interest).
The one thing consumers and stockholders want the most is truthful information. Enron, Global Crossing, Adelphia, MCI, and others -- these scandals changed everything. The truth is not only required, but in the world of investors it is compelled under the threat of jail. And lately, Comcast's truth has been called into question.
So where's the Sarbanes Oxley for broadband consumers? There isn't one. It only applies to honesty with investors and company economic data. However, in so much as the company was selling 6 Mbps/384 Kbps unfettered connections to the internet (e.g. it's key item of value in inventory), and they continued to sell accounts it even in areas where the network was so congested that it had to cheat some customers by secretly interfering with their connections using Sandvine, and then provided false information as they publicly denied the entire affair -- I'm left to wonder what elements are missing that keeps the government or investors from pressing for a SOX investigation?
So, there you have it. The link between P2P "bandwidth hogs" and investors. Both groups were lied to, and as a result, both groups were cheated. Not friends, but strange bedfellows.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. | |
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