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| reply to Rick
Re: Comcast is scared.... said by Rick:You fail to consider how allowing them entry could in fact raise prices higher than normal in time. That could happen in one of two ways. First..if you allow another company to simply cherry pick the highest ROI customers..you create an imbalance that saddles Comcast with the rest. Who gets to pay for that in the form of higher prices? All the rest. Secondly, we've all seen the news of verizons massive loss of landlines and dsl customers. There is NOTHING conducive in that which will allow verizon to be particularly price competitive in the years ahead and if anything..due to the high cost of the rollout itself..could cause them to RAISE prices higher than normal. What might comcasts move then have to be? To do the same because all verizon would have done is to cannibalize customers who otherwise might have allowed them to keep prices lower. Both the massive landline loss and DSL customer loss were going to happen *anyway*. (Also, how many of both losses are to other parts of VZ? Specifically, landline losses to VZW and DSL losses actually being FIOS crossgrades or conversions?). All the RBOCs are in the same position when it comes to landline losses; VZ, as the second-largest, is going to suffer a larger impact than say, Qwest.
Rick, VZ knows as well as both of us and Comcast that absent either service differences or price differences, or both, most folks won't switch service providers (for anything); in fact, the entire reason CDV is gaining customers from VZ (or anyone else) is price. (So says Comcast's own ads.) VZ has, in fact, woken up and smelled the coffee; they have adjusted their programming prices for FIOS TV to offset Comcast's advantages (lower lease rates for STBs, and especially in most of Philadelphia, not needing STBs for cable-ready TVs).
Look, I have nothing against Comcast as a company (they have provided good service to me since 1999 for cable TV, and 2000 for HSI); however, I refuse to buy Comcast's argument that VZ will not compete on price (which they certainly will), or even that Comcast won't compete on price (which they are certainly doing with CDV). When you have two companies in the same business, on the same turf, the only way one can gain customers from the other is to compete - either on price or on level/quality of service. (Or, naturally, both.) |
