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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
 ·Embarq
| They're pushing it
It's finally here: Basic cable (no box) will hit $60, and guess what? I'm gone. I pay $55 now for Comcast channels 2 to 70, so this price hike will likely have me on the phone to Dish. There's no sense in staying when I know the employee excuse is BS. They can absorb employee training and the hiring of new employees where needed without two rate hikes in one year.
These hikes are about not cutting into rapacious profits to go from half-assed service to quarter-assed service. If I thought for one minute that my service would actually improve -- no snowy picture or downtime with T-storms that take hours to come back up and phone drones (except to pay a bill -- they've got that sh_t down pat), then no problem. But for more of the same crap? No way. I've been down this road too many times. Fool me once, fool me ten times.
I dumped Comcast HSI when they took over Adelphia and I'll dump the TV too. If more people did this they'd lower their f'n rates faster than a powerboosted speedtest AND hire the techs they need for decent support.
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.sig awaiting self approval | |
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs: 
| said by Titus Pullo  :There's no sense in staying when I know the employee excuse is BS. I can't speak for your area not even knowing where it is but can say that here in Ct., they seem to be hiring like mad and advertising for openings every hour on the hour on TV even.
They even opened a new tech call center that I drove by recently.
So, from that perspective, it does appear that they're trying to improve service and add more staffing.
Personally, I've found their values are much better when you add and combine services. If you ask for them, they also have triple play deals for current customers that you can take advantage of. The last one they offered me was digital TV, 2 premiums..phone..hsi for 129.00.
There's certainly a lot more value in that rather than an a la carte standard service for 50 or 60 bucks.
Here's how I look at it. Is 4 bucks and change per day for all that worth it? I sure think so..and that's what it amounts to when you break it down that way.
Where else in this world do you get all that value and entertainment, hsi speeds..phone service..digital tv..premiums..for what amounts to less than half the price of one movie ticket? And..a cheap ticket at that.
Heck..that's not even going to cover the price of a bucket of popcorn anymore going out to a theater.
Honestly, I think people need to rethink this this way and maybe they'll see it's really quite a value after all.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| said by Rick :said by Titus Pullo :There's no sense in staying when I know the employee excuse is BS. Personally, I've found their values are much better when you add and combine services. If you ask for them, they also have triple play deals for current customers that you can take advantage of. The last one they offered me was digital TV, 2 premiums..phone..hsi for 129.00. There's certainly a lot more value in that rather than an a la carte standard service for 50 or 60 bucks. Honestly, I think people need to rethink this this way and maybe they'll see it's really quite a value after all. Bundling is how they keep you on the hook: Retention in areas with competition is a lock once they have you with phone, internet and tv through the same company. Once you unhook from one service, it's easy to dump the whole shebang or one at a time. And, yes, the single charge for one service is pure penalty for not buying the bundle. And that's a fact. But the TV rate WAS in line with Dish. Not any more.
I value uptime/reliability. Comcast's uptime and QoS in my area isn't terrible, but it isn't that good either.
By comparison, my DSL service has been down once in a year's time and the landline has never been down. Add my cell to the mix and I don't need Comcast's $100+ bundle for per one year unreliable introductory rip-off service. The TV here is _TERRIBLE_ --Snowy analog and compressed digital (I've seen the latter but don't, and won't, pay for it).
If you're happy then I'm happy for you. But I'm not paying another rate hike to a company to hire the help they should have had to begin with given their rates and profit margins.
-- | |
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
| said by Titus Pullo : But I'm not paying another rate hike to a company to hire the help they should have had to begin with given their rates and profit margins. -- I'd hardly call a 10.6% profit margin excessive by any means.
»finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=CMCSA
Which I guess means it all boils down to they make 5 or 6 bucks off that 50 to 60.00 tv service they bring you.
Is that a lot?
I sure don't think so.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! | |
KoolMoe
Aw Man
Premium
join:2001-02-14
Annapolis, MD
clubs:
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Speakeasy
| I would take that more as a poorly managed company than a justification to once again raise rates. The huge growth of Comcast over the recent years is supposed to realize efficiencies and economies of scale. If they can't realize this, the maybe they'd do better reverting back to a bunch of more localized independents.
It's great that bundled services can save money. I, however, am not so keen on having all services tied to one line. That one line down, all services down. Not a risk I'm willing to take considering my experience with cable OR telco services.
It would be interesting to see where Comcast rate hikes have happened overlaid where there is competition. Now that FIOS is in my area, I wonder how often cable rates will go up?
And if Comcast does raise rates and VZ follows right behind them, well, I've yet to try Dish or DirecTV here...
KM | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| reply to Rick
said by Rick :said by Titus Pullo : But I'm not paying another rate hike to a company to hire the help they should have had to begin with given their rates and profit margins. -- I'd hardly call a 10.6% profit margin excessive by any means. » finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=CMCSAIs that a lot? I sure don't think so. No? If we're talking net, then your econ and mine aren't from the same book. Here's the first link I found:
"According to Quicken.com, less than one out of four U.S. publicly traded companies can claim a net profit margin north of 7% over the past year. By that measure alone, this Foolish 8 requirement appears to be a fairly good screen for identifying highly profitable companies. If you graph all companies as falling somewhere along a basic bell curve-shaped distribution, those that can manage to report just 7% net profits margins will be found firmly to the right of the statistical mean."
Here are some other data to chew on, which some investors may also find surprising:
Net Profit Margins
Average net profit margin for S&P 500 companies ...... 7.0%
Average net profit margin for all Nasdaq companies ... 3.1%
From:
»www.fool.com/foolish8/2000/fooli···1208.htm
-- end copy --
If 7% is "firmly to the right of the statistical mean," then what is 10? I don't know the STDev, but 'soundly' to the right at 7 is at the very least beyond 'very good' profits at 10.
-- | |
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
| So, I guess what you're saying is they should lower their service by a buck and make 4 or 5 bucks off your TV service instead of 5 to 6? After all, that's what would them bring them in line with what you're suggesting is more the norm.
Sorry, but that buck doesn't make a world of difference to me..and hopefully..not to you either.
You're acting here as if that 50 to 60 per month service can be cut to 30.00 or 40.00 a month instead.
And, it simply can't to allow the company to remain profitable.
As you can hopefully now see, the profit margin in dollar terms is very low and break even is only a few dollars from what they sell the service for.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! | |
RTP
@ga.us
| reply to Rick
youre such a kiss ass for the Company Rick .. Im sick tired that you brag about it even though you know they are the worst .. then you blast att uverse .. appreciate the fact the u-verse does have the potential to compete comacast based on price..  | |
KoolMoe
Aw Man
Premium
join:2001-02-14
Annapolis, MD
clubs:
·Verizon FIOS
·Speakeasy
| reply to Rick
When the FedGov has big expenses, do you advocate raising taxes? Or would you prefer cutting spending and managing what they do have more efficiently?
I certainly prefer the latter. I have no way of knowing, but I suspect there's an awful lot of mismanagement and waste going on here.
Of course, it's easier just to raise rates twice a year instead of bringing costs under tighter control...especially when there's little competition to worry about.
KM | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| reply to Rick
said by Rick :So, I guess what you're saying is they should lower their service by a buck and make 4 or 5 bucks off your TV service instead of 5 to 6? After all, that's what would them bring them in line with what you're suggesting is more the norm. Sorry, but that buck doesn't make a world of difference to me..and hopefully..not to you either. You're acting here as if that 50 to 60 per month service can be cut to 30.00 or 40.00 a month instead. And, it simply can't to allow the company to remain profitable. As you can hopefully now see, the profit margin in dollar terms is very low and break even is only a few dollars from what they sell the service for. Your arguments (and logic) are beginning to resemble a dog chasing its tail  Now you're putting words in my mouth. I never said what they should make or charge, I was addressing the fact that their profits continue to go up but rather than finance improved service FROM those profits, they're passing along every cent it costs them to implement this, uh, 'improved service' to the customer while their profits continue to rise. If you're going to argue a point do it with what I write, not with what you'd like me to write to justify your position. Sheesh!
You're at the bottom because this one is too simple: take that $5 and multiply it by the number of paying customers and what do you get? That's a lot of duckets, and a lot of bull that they need to raise rates twice in a year to provide us with better service when they're enjoying some of the highest profit margins in industry at present. Again, in case you didn't read, it's all about keeping the bottom line fat as hell and damn the customers because Comcast already has churn figured into the equation; they're probably within a 3 point margin of how many customers they'll lose with this rate hike and that amount of lost revenue is covered BY the rate hike. Who the F do you think you're kidding?
But, I guess yourself, since you address each argument with a non-sequitur, and then find yourself left with the "you don't want the company to make money" thing. I guess I'll "hate the troops" next. No one wants a company to fail, but given the fact that the customer doesn't have much choice anymore, guess who's losing and who's winning? But that's OK, you'll figure out soon enough that your rates are keeping a fat bottom line as people start to bail out - first on the premium stuff and then on cable altogether. Only at that point will prices come down for real. Not more of this incentivizing BS to bait, hook and reel you in.
But until then, sure, add another couple of bucks here and there and over yonder because we had to actually train the people we hire (good excuse) or hire enough people to service the areas we've taken over. But guess what? We're not going to lower our bottom line one penny because you're going to pay for it all while our CEOs and managers make boo-coo bucks and our stock price looks good on paper because our net is nearly 11%.
I've read some fanboy logic in my time, but yikes.
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.sig under review by Comcast GoonSquad® | |
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
1 edit | Try as I might, I can find no logic in your argument at all.
As I've clearly demonstrated, their "profit" off you as a cable tv customer amounts to something like 5 to 6 dollars per month.
But yet..you'd now like them to use that profit to "hire the techs they need for decent support"..and..apparently..on top of that..to lower their rates for you as well.
You are attempting to cite industry statistics that supposedly say they "should" be making 7% instead. I'm in no way agreeing with that statement because I think there's plenty of goods and services out there that cost 60.00 a month where the company is making a whole helluva lot more markup than that.
But, lets say that they did that.
Now, we're talking about what..a dollar less per month from you? Or..a dollar that they're directing instead to paying for these increases themselves instead of raising your rates?
Can anyone say..big whoop? The dollar is meaningless in the whole big picture..and I'd daresay that if your service was 59.00 a month instead of 60.00..it wouldn't make a world of difference to you..because you'd still be rambling on about it costing too much.
The fact of the matter is..there is VERY little markup in these products. And, you and I are paying very close to what it costs this company to deliver it.
Anything less and the company would become a non profit organization..and they're certainly not going to be doing that.
I also have to strongly disagree with you on the points you make about them not adding to their tech workforce.
Again..here in this state..I see a new center going up..and their advertising for hundreds of new support reps.
That is where our money is going...and..I highly doubt it's us that are footing the whole bill for it.
If you hadn't prematurely cancelled your HSI..you'd also be seeing all the exciting things they've been passing along to we customers. All at no cost.
Higher speeds..and even speeds with powerboost now that exceed 20Mb.
All for just over a dollar a day.
Is that too much for you too?
I get the sense you want everything for nothing..but too bad it just doesn't work that way.
I also think you need to look at the bigger picture..and what this industry and company is now offering customers.
I don't know about YOU..but I used to pay hundreds per month for the slowest dialup service you could imagine years ago.
Today..for just a fraction of that..I get speeds like this.
Sorry, but I simply don't see this as being expensive. I think we get a great value from Comcast..for all they deliver.
Like I suggested..if you were to bundle all your services together..for what amounts to about 4 to 5.00 per day..you could have everything they offer. From digital tv..to all the premiums..to HSI..to phone.
What on earth do you get that offers that kind of value..besides all this? That amount would barely cover a happy meal at Mcd's these days. But yet..you see it as too expensive for ALL these services combined.
It's you who are choosing to go the more expensive route..via ala carte.
And, if that makes you happy..then fine.
But don't try to present this service in the false light you are.
Because it is one very good value..day in ..day out..
and many of us feel that way. | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| said by Rick :Try as I might, I can find no logic in your argument at all. Let me help you by making it as succinct as possible.
* Two rate increases in one year to improve customer service
* I already pay, in effect, a penalty for NOT buying more than one service from Comcast. If you think that a price structure that penalizes someone that might not be able to afford $120 or $150 a month for bundled services from one company, or perhaps doesn't want all their eggs in one basket, is somehow illogical, well ... that's your prerogative.
* Their profit margins could be 20% for all I care -- more power to them and their stockholders. What I'm saying is that in my mind I know what type of company I'm dealing with when I get hit with not one but two rate hikes in one year while the company is enjoying wonderful financial health for a reason that is nebulously intangible at best (I can't see with my own eyes whether their service is better because they've raised my rates again to that end).
So, in summary: I'm not advocating what Comcast should be making (7% or 70%). I know, as do we all, that corporations are in business to make money for stockholders. However, whether you realize it or not, Comcast is squandering something worth a lot more than you think, and that's called goodwill. As I stated, if I thought I would receive better customer service and QoS with these constant rate hikes I might 'swallow' it a bit easier. Sad to say, that's not the history with the cable industry, and those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it. As in rates that rise many times the rate of inflation.
Three years ago, I paid $83 for HSI and Expanded Basic w/box/HBO. Comcast wants to raise my _current_rate_ UP to $60 for analog cable service that is notoriously fuzzy while they enjoy record profits. I'm not asking for a lower rate, I'm asking them to quit making me pay, pay, pay, more, more, more, when their profits tell me that they could absorb the cost to improve their CS without raising my rates AGAIN. Never mind the fact that they have no way of proving to me that their tech support has improved. For whom? Another state? It's nonsense to charge me more for what amounts to lousy service when they're raking in record profits.
If you can't understand a consumer saying "enough" when the reasons are as clear as a spring sky, I can't help you.
-- | |
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
1 edit | I think this fully rationalizes their price increase..which, for some, isn't even an increase at all.
Really, I think it all boils down to your choice to stick with what you have, rather than realize greater savings by bundling.
»seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/···s16.html | |
comcastsucks2
@rstmkt.com | reply to Rick
Maybe I just watch 10 channels and they need to adjust their packages? A la carte perhaps? | |
lexy
join:2007-10-21
Ogden, UT
| reply to Titus Pullo
said by Titus Pullo :It's finally here: Basic cable (no box) will hit $60, and guess what? I'm gone. I pay $55 now for Comcast channels 2 to 70, so this price hike will likely have me on the phone to Dish. There's no sense in staying when I know the employee excuse is BS. They can absorb employee training and the hiring of new employees where needed without two rate hikes in one year. These hikes are about not cutting into rapacious profits to go from half-assed service to quarter-assed service. If I thought for one minute that my service would actually improve -- no snowy picture or downtime with T-storms that take hours to come back up and phone drones (except to pay a bill -- they've got that sh_t down pat), then no problem. But for more of the same crap? No way. I've been down this road too many times. Fool me once, fool me ten times. I dumped Comcast HSI when they took over Adelphia and I'll dump the TV too. If more people did this they'd lower their f'n rates faster than a powerboosted speedtest AND hire the techs they need for decent support. -- .sig awaiting self approval OHH REAL SMART! so you sign with the dish which advertises prices you will never see on your bill,pay a activation fee of at least 50$ since the install is free!then they require a phone line to each receiver (unlike comcast) or pay 5$ a box extra.Also pay 5 $ for local channels and if you have a problem with your set up ,plan on paying a minumum of 99.00$!Not to mention a contract or atleast a year! you cant get out of ! no thanks I wont switch just to end up paying more to prove a bad point.And atleast the tech. fixed my comcast problem for free. Lex | |
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