Half Of Insight's Customers Switched To ComcastUnwound partnership results in territory split ( old news - 11:11AM Monday Apr 02 2007) tags: business · cableTipped by compugeek  Last week reports suggested half of Insight's cable broadband customers could find their way into the hands of Comcast. We asked Insight CEO Michael Willner about the report and were told "we don't comment on speculative stories in the press." Well, today said "speculation" is official: to dissolve an ownership partnership born when Comcast acquired AT&T Broadband, Comcast will directly acquire a significant number of Insight customers in Illinois and Indiana. Comcast will acquire more than 1.2 million customers (684,000 basic video customers, 296,000 digital video customers and 300,000 broadband customers). "Comcast already has significant properties in Indiana and Illinois, so it makes sense for them to assume control over the systems in these states," says Willner. "Insight will operate a very efficient cluster in Kentucky, where it will continue to be the largest operator in the state, and in neighboring southern Indiana and in Columbus, Ohio."You can find reaction from impacted Insight broadband customers in our Insight forum. Says one: "Hmm lets see, slower speeds, newsgroup server with 2GB download quota per month per email account, and invisible caps? The future is looking wonderful."
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AnonProxy
Proxy of Anon
Premium
join:2001-05-12
ß | RA! Gooooo COMCAST! | |
| jdmatl
join:2000-04-27
Deerfield Beach, FL
| Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers Kiss whatever you had goodbye! The Comcastic machine is absorbing all systems like the "Borg" did. Resistance is futile as is resistance to higher cable prices with worse service and slower broadband speeds.
Remember it is COMCASTIC!!! And tune to Comcast Channel1 for overpriced Video-on-Demand. | |
|  | 
John Galt
Forward, March
Premium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
 ·CenturyLink
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers said by jdmatl :The Comcastic machine is absorbing all systems like the "Borg" did. How do you think Comcast got to be the way they are today?
»www.businessweek.com/1998/39/b3597046.htm
Did anyone ever doubt that [John] Malone, variously called the King of Cable and Darth Vader, would come back in glory? Certainly not L.J. Davis, author of The Billionaire Shell Game, a highly critical account of how the cable industry over-promised new technology in order to curry favor with Wall Street and, in Malone's case, to find a buyer for Tele-Communications. Davis, a contributing editor to Harper's magazine, figures that Malone has been angling for a billion- dollar payday almost since the moment he took the reins of TCI in 1973 as a 32-year-old engineer who had befriended founder Bob Magness. Unwilling to pay taxes, he leveraged the company to the hilt to buy up any available system even if it meant losing millions. As for the TV viewer, says Davis, Malone couldn't care less: Better service and more channels meant higher costs, and if he spent more on existing subscribers, he would have to slow his march to build America's largest cable empire. ''The trick,'' Davis writes, ''was to never give the public what it wanted.''
It is their corporate culture...
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A is A | |
| | | JSRoman
Premium
join:2005-03-10
Callahan, FL
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers said by John Galt :said by jdmatl :The Comcastic machine is absorbing all systems like the "Borg" did. How do you think Comcast got to be the way they are today? » www.businessweek.com/1998/39/b3597046.htmDid anyone ever doubt that [John] Malone, variously called the King of Cable and Darth Vader, would come back in glory? Certainly not L.J. Davis, author of The Billionaire Shell Game, a highly critical account of how the cable industry over-promised new technology in order to curry favor with Wall Street and, in Malone's case, to find a buyer for Tele-Communications. Davis, a contributing editor to Harper's magazine, figures that Malone has been angling for a billion- dollar payday almost since the moment he took the reins of TCI in 1973 as a 32-year-old engineer who had befriended founder Bob Magness. Unwilling to pay taxes, he leveraged the company to the hilt to buy up any available system even if it meant losing millions. As for the TV viewer, says Davis, Malone couldn't care less: Better service and more channels meant higher costs, and if he spent more on existing subscribers, he would have to slow his march to build America's largest cable empire. ''The trick,'' Davis writes, ''was to never give the public what it wanted.''It is their corporate culture... "A word of caution: Davis' only direct communication with Malone was in a 1990 interview, and Davis' recent other TCI contacts have been limited to two technology execs. Thus, TCI officials say, the book is flawed and inaccurate in parts."
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www.seabee.org | |
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John Galt
Forward, March
Premium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
·CenturyLink
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers said by JSRoman :"A word of caution: Davis' only direct communication with Malone was in a 1990 interview, and Davis' recent other TCI contacts have been limited to two technology execs. Thus, TCI officials say, the book is flawed and inaccurate in parts." Perhaps...but I actually *lived it* so I can confirm for a fact first-hand that is the way they handled themselves and built the business.
I got to meet John Malone in person when he came to personally testify at my trial...my Federal trial. They brought federal charges because I gave company information to the local franchise authority on the exact thing that the commented portion of my post indicated.
The judge said WTF? and dismissed the charges and followed up with a nice lecture on the abuse of the courts to the plaintiff.
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A is A | |
| | Mordhem
Love it, Hate it.
join:2003-07-10
Baltimore, MD
 ·Comcast
| said by jdmatl :Kiss whatever you had goodbye! The Comcastic machine is absorbing all systems like the "Borg" did. Resistance is futile as is resistance to higher cable prices with worse service and slower broadband speeds. Remember it is COMCASTIC!!! And tune to Comcast Channel1 for overpriced Video-on-Demand. Ohh ya not like the phone company's don't over charge! Considering I have like 100% better service from when I was with the phone company, I would rather pay more for great service then pay over priced for a crappy service.
"Comcastic machine is absorbing all systems like the "Borg" did."
I think your thinking of MA Bell! They are like the T1000 Of Companys, I hope just like in the movie Comcast crushes the hell out of ma bell.
Death to the phone company!
GO COMCAST!!!! | |
| | | RadioDoc
58ef2c0
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers Nice pile of crap you dropped in this thread. Very Comcastic! of you.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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phattieg
join:2001-04-29
Winter Park, FL
 ·Verizon Wireless B..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
1 edit | Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers said by RadioDoc :Nice pile of crap you dropped in this thread. Very Comcastic! of you. You know, it's not a pile of crap when it's true. He simply stated that "the new AT&T" is eating up major Bell companies like PacMan eats dots and ghosts (and cherries, cake, etc...). But you know, I come to expect anal retentive remarks from your UID, and perhaps that is why the Ex is in front of the Mod part of your user info. As the saying goes, "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one".
EDIT: Lets recap, SBC bought Ameritech, SouthWestern Bell, Pacific Bell, SNET, AT&T, Cingular, THEN BellSouth, as well as a few others inbetween. All within 7 years. Then changed the name to AT&T. How much money did it cost to change AT&T to Cingular, then change it back? I have no clue, but it's rediculous that you'd say Comcast is any worse.
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SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1. | |
| | | | | RadioDoc
58ef2c0
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
·AT&T Midwest
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers You lost all your credibility with the ex-mod snipe. Too bad you're unable to apply the posting standard you expect of others to yourself.
How many companies has Comcast eaten in the last seven years?
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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phattieg
join:2001-04-29
Winter Park, FL
·Verizon Wireless B..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers said by RadioDoc :You lost all your credibility with the ex-mod snipe. Too bad you're unable to apply the posting standard you expect of others to yourself. How many companies has Comcast eaten in the last seven years? Key word, perhaps, was used. I could care less about your opinion of my credibility. My post clearly states the obvious, which is they are not alone. You can't call someone elses post a junk post if they are contributing, and not flaming. If the Mod's were tightwads around here, your post would have been deleted along with mine. If you want to flame, then get a new user id, because all I see you do is babble about negativity all the time, and hardly see a sensible post come from you. To be honest, you are probably the most arrogant "Mod" (Ex-Mod for that matter) on here, and your blatant flame of calling that users post "crap" should be a perfect reason for me, or anyone else, to come to that conclusion. At least with a new UID that has no ExMod behind it, you'll look like the other babble-butts on here. If you want to "flame" me back, then just PM me, and save the world your arrogance.
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SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1. | |
| | | | | | | RadioDoc
58ef2c0
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
·AT&T Midwest
2 edits | Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers I'll say it again, try applying your posting "standards" to yourself.
You can attempt to qualify your sniping with "perhaps" but anyone on message boards for more than 10 minutes knows what you're doing. The posting rules here do not prohibit commenting on a post's content. That's actually encouraged. You opened the personal attack door, not me. "Perhaps" your employment prevents you from walking away from posts which criticize your employer.
Still waiting for your actual, on-topic content.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. | |
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phattieg
join:2001-04-29
Winter Park, FL
·Verizon Wireless B..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers said by RadioDoc :I'll say it again, try applying your posting "standards" to yourself. You can attempt to qualify your sniping with "perhaps" but anyone on message boards for more than 10 minutes knows what you're doing. The posting rules here do not prohibit commenting on a post's content. That's actually encouraged. You opened the personal attack door, not me. "Perhaps" your employment prevents you from walking away from posts which criticize your employer. Still waiting for your actual, on-topic content. I could care less if you "flame" Comcast. It's NOT my job, and I DON'T get paid to sit in here and govern what others say. But if a stupid, or unfair comment is made, I will say something. You can criticize away, just make sure your comments have some justification. The post simply stated that Comcast isn't the only provider who is getting bigger than many people think they should be. Isn't the post also about how big the company is getting, or did I miss something that made it SPECIFICALLY about one part of the topic???
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SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1. | |
| | 
Chuckles
Premium
join:2006-03-04
Saint Paul, MN
| said by jdmatl :Remember it is COMCASTIC!!! And tune to Comcast Channel1 for overpriced Video-on-Demand. Yeah that free stuff is killing my pocket book. 
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If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. | |
| | | Mordhem
Love it, Hate it.
join:2003-07-10
Baltimore, MD
·Comcast
| Re: Get ready for higher cable prices Insight Customers Hell Imagine what it would be like if MA Bell could buy comcast. You would have the normal in demand price then a service fee of 5$ then a broadcasting fee of 6$, then you would have a Reconcile Fee of 7$ then a receive fee of 10$ then like 10 more fees for things you never even heard of. I would rather a company charge me a price that is said on the phone then have a company charge me 10 covered up trump charges.
I am happy with Comcast, mainly because I know what it would be like if the phone company owned it.
Comcast my = Evil, but if so Ma Bell = Satan | |
| | reports242
join:2007-03-28
Chicago, IL | ha! there is no better alternative. dsl sucks and every other cable tv company i've had besides comcast cost more. you may not like it, but the alternatives are worse. | |
| | | wstwrdho
join:2007-03-15
Riverton, UT | Re: This was misleading... I agree. Comcast already owned these subscribers by owning a big chunk of Insight. It sort of went TCI owned -> AT&T Broadband owned -> Comcast owned. Comcast is just putting their name on it. | |
| 
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26 | Let's see here ... "Comcast will acquire more than 1.2 million customers [...]"
That's nearly the number of Comcast's capital hill lobby, isn't it?
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My iLife isn't in MyDocuments | |
| Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Time Warner How long before the other cable monster buys the rest of Insight? | |
| | 
Loker
Premium
join:2004-07-11
Fargo, ND
clubs:
| Re: Time Warner said by Sammer :How long before the other cable monster buys the rest of Insight? Comcast is not really 'buying' half of insight....it is more like a divorce....they are splitting insight down the middle and Comcast is taking the half it already owns....
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"While preceding your entrance with a grenade is a good tactic inQuake, it can lead to problems if attempted at work." -- C Hacking | |
| | | wstwrdho
join:2007-03-15
Riverton, UT | Re: Time Warner Your right.
My question is how did Malone and the RBOC's get in the middle of this. I don't see the conspiracy piece. | |
| | | | Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Re: Time Warner Malone sold TCI to AT&T. Later AT&T sold AT&T Broadband (formerly TCI) to Comcast. | |
| | | | | wstwrdho
join:2007-03-15
Riverton, UT | Re: Time Warner Yep, he did but I don't think Malones a part of this deal. I don't think Rogers leans on Malone or the RBOCS for business direction. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Malone had retained some ownership in both companies. So I could be wrong. | |
| | | | | | DraconSlayer
join:2004-03-03
Schiller Park, IL | Re: Time Warner FEED the pig even more, like it isn't fat enough... and yes give it more power.... 1 word for that MONOPOLY.... | |
| | | GLIMMER
join:2004-01-17
Urbana, IL | Re: bummer atleast we can enjoy 10/1 till the end of the summer.. | |
| 
odreian615
join:2006-01-18
Chicago, IL | Comcast and ATT will rule the world I DO NOT welcome my new overlords | |
| | Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Re: Comcast and ATT will rule the world Depends where you live. Verizon and Time Warner Cable aren't going away. Duopoly coming soon to your neighborhood unless you live in a sparsely populated area. | |
| 
Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs: 
| I wonder why Insight didn't buy them out and retain these customers?
As a former Insight customer for many years while living in Cols. Ohio, I was always impressed with the company, their products and service. They always seemed to me to be on the forefront of rolling out the latest and greatest service, whatever that may be.
As a businessman myself however very acquainted with working with growth companies and competing very aggressively in the marketplace I've often felt that the company left a lot of opportunities on the table during the last 10 years when so much was happening in this industry.
They somehow struck me as being too content to just operate as a mom and pop cable company with little to no ambition to grow into the kinds of enterprise that they could have. And meanwhile, the giants of the industry today, namely Time Warner and Comcast, have just run them over and continue to do so today.
I think that there is a certain mindset here at work. Most of my career before becoming a semi retired computer geek was in management in the Financial services sector and specifically, the banking industry and there has long been a very aggressive competitive mindset that just caused me to always operate from a position of you had to get bigger, grow stronger, and simply do things better than the next guy in order to survive and then make it in that industry. 10 years with what is now CitiGroup during their primary building phase certainly taught me how that goes.
Sorry to say, but my view in years past of this industry hasn't included that, but has rather been one of them being too content in just being who they were and not aspiring to more.
My interest and love of this industry and namely all things computer and broadband related has had me sitting on the sidelines looking at them from a customer viewpoint in the past, but yet I couldn't help but to somehow apply the aggressive company building mentality I'd been so used to for years and say to myself, WHY..isn't this company making a BIG move on what is SURE to be something so big?
Instead, it's others who are and have done it. Namely Comcast..and Time Warner. But still, even with them, it's as if they just learned their real potential only in the last couple of years. And before that, were just too busy thinking small and being just a "cable company".
But, to not seem too harsh on them, I also think there's a lot of benefit to being a private company, as they are now, and out of the public company rat race mentality.
And, there's certainly nothing wrong with being a "mom and pop" company either. But you can't let that consume you these days either though, and stop growing.
Because sooner or later you're going to get eaten up being just that.
Anyways..just my .02cents worth. As a former customer and outsider. I do think that this company is one that is very good, but that could be more than it is today.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! | |
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RIRWIN1983
join:2005-08-30
Columbus, OH
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: I wonder why Rick, do you think the columbus,oh market will get bought by twc after all of this, since we are using "their" road runner, for HSI. Since as im shure your familiar with, TWC is the "major" player here, with insight covering areas were TWC isent at, and ofd course WOW is everywhere do to being the former americast from ameritech. | |
| | | 
digitalfreak
join:2005-12-09
49533
| Re: I wonder why I live in the Insight service area in Columbus (though I have DirecTV & DSL). Considering there is no overlap between TWC & Insight, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that TWC is buying the Columbus market from Insight. I'd expect for it to happen before the end of the year. | |
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RIRWIN1983
join:2005-08-30
Columbus, OH
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: I wonder why as we had previously discussed elsewhere rick (re:the rr name) i think if insight offered diffrent tiers of hsiv they could maybe beg more people to signup. and BTW anyone that has the HDDVR in the columbus market, but dont have the hd pack, call in and ask for the HD Track, i had a tech out the outher day and he noticed that we dident have that it was part of having the hddvr, and cost 0.00 and called in and had it added. | |
| | Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | IMHO it's probably because the the Carlyle Group wants to sell off the rest of Insight for a fat profit. | |
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Rick
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT
clubs:
| Re: I wonder why said by Sammer :IMHO it's probably because the the Carlyle Group wants to sell off the rest of Insight for a fat profit. You might be right. I guess everyone has a price and based on recent cable co's deals like Adelphia to TW/Comcast, that price is pretty enticing right now.
But, companies like Insight also have a lot of opportunity for growth ahead to increase revenues as well. Not only is there a lot of homes they pass that they don't yet serve, but many people still don't subscribe to more than one service with them.
If they could do a better job selling to those who don't yet take their service where their lines pass the homes anyway..in addition to getting more people on triple play phone..cable..HSI packages..the price that companies are paying today might still be quite low.
I think if I was insight management, I'd first maximize that before considering selling the company as a whole.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! | |
| | | | AJICQ499087
join:2001-12-01
Louisville, KY |  Re: I wonder why
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low cost and fast speed is what customers want in broadband | |
| | | Couch Potato
What?
Premium
join:2004-08-29
Evansville, IN | Re: digital guide... if he has the DCT 2000, i agree, that guide is rubbish, but if he were to get a DVR, it has the TV guide in it, or the new 2500 boxes have the TV Guide also, and it's far superior to Liberate.
my 2¢ | |
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Greg_Z
Premium
join:2001-08-08
Springfield, IL
·Comcast
| Actually, LocalSource is on its way out. Of course, everyone is forgetting that once Comcast takes over the Insight markets, ADS will come into play, which means goodbye Analog from 2-22 if you do not want a box, and for everything else, you will have to get a box.
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I threw out the map a long time ago. Now I follow my own direction! | |
| indy0365
join:2001-08-25
Franklin, IN | there goes my 10/1 for 40 $ there goes my stanard 10 meg/ 1 meg for 40$ mostly uncapped unless you uploaded a lot then insight might send a warning letter
plus pckage was 15 meg/ 1.5 for 80$ | |
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