Comcast recently unveiled their "Xfinity" Internet video service, which the company offers for free to existing TV customers in the hopes they won't cut the cord as more and more content is made available online. While the project is in beta, early impressions have been somewhat mixed, given the limited catalog and some wonky authentication and GUI issues. Hopefully Comcast users liked the Xfinity brand name, because Comcast has announced that while they're keeping the Comcast company name, they're applying the Xfinity brand name across all of the company's "technology platform and products.":
quote:
XFINITY represents the future of our company and it’s a promise to customers that we’ll keep innovating. When we launch XFINITY in a market, we’ll rebrand our products: XFINITY TV, XFINITY Voice and XFINITY Internet (our company, of course, remains Comcast). This transition is already well underway across the country. Next week, XFINITY will roll out in 11 markets including: Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Hartford, Augusta, Chattanooga, parts of the Bay Area and San Francisco, with more markets to come later this year.
By "roll out," Comcast apparently means local advertising using the brand, since most of the upgrades in these markets (including faster DOCSIS 3.0 speeds) have already been completed. One source familiar with the project tells Broadband Reports that part of the Xfinity push includes making sure every "Xfinity-upgraded" market has 100+ HD stations, 50+ Foreign Stations, and beefed up on demand offerings. But the project also involves getting Comcast's 100 Mbps tier (currently only available in the Minneapolis market) into about 20% of Comcast markets before the end of the year.If you don't like the name, at least be happy that the company didn't use the last decade's most abused marketing meme: "Extreme!" (though it's close).
I wonder how much a year they pay the person that came up with this amazing idea?
Names changes never to anything good for an established compamy , as it just causes confusion etc etc , Will be changed back within months , and "the Brain" who thought of it promoted with a huge bonus check..
I wonder how much a year they pay the person that came up with this amazing idea?
Names changes never to anything good for an established company , as it just causes confusion etc etc , Will be changed back within months , and "the Brain" who thought of it promoted with a huge bonus check..
Nations Bank was known as "The King of Fees" in the banking world so they changed their name to Bank of America.
Usually, when a brand is so horribly compromised by bad press, it is better to change the name and try to start over.
As an example, remember those Comcast commercials where someone signing in monotone raves about how great the service is and spells out Comcast in the end? That, good or bad, is brand recognition and people remember. Those commercials can't be used anymore.
Also gone is the phrase "Comcastic" which has been bastardized into "Comcraptic."
Reminds me of this Nicholis Cage skit on SNL about baby names.
Kind of a strange time to change names, I actually see them building up some positive press lately. Where I live they have gone from the worst, most overpriced, least helpful TV/Phone company around to the most helpful and affordable with the best options as well. The reliability is still lacking, and I wish they would update the DVR boxes, but compared to two years ago, this is much better.
Yeah, that's what I thought of when I first heard of it a while back. Still, I have this "extreme" desire to work "Wormhole X-Treme!" into it somehow... how about "Comcast High-Speed Internet Wormhole X-Treme!"? (too long?)
I wonder how much a year they pay the person that came up with this amazing idea?
Names changes never to anything good for an established compamy , as it just causes confusion etc etc , Will be changed back within months , and "the Brain" who thought of it promoted with a huge bonus check..
A couple of years ago the famous Franklin Institue here in Philly chaged its name to the more trendy/hip "The Franklin" , a total disaster - they ended up changing it back this year.. It does not always work.. But I better shut up before the heavy handed mods here accuse of being "off Topic".
The move to Xfinity is more about battling well established brands from Comcast competitors like FiOS and U-verss. Telcos have done a better job in branding their product suite. Comcast hopes they can now coalesce their products around Xfinity and take on the FiOS and U-verse brands more effectively.
I don't care for the name, but a solid brand name isn't a bad idea.
I recall, back when I worked for them, talking to people who were there for the early days of the @home transition. The only name they had was "Comcast High-Speed Internet", thus abbreviated to CHSI. Not a good brand name to use given the number of people who would pronounce that acronym as "cheesy".
"Would you be interested in our cheesy internet service?"
Not that Ex-Finity is any easier to pronounce (I give it 1 week before half their customer base is calling it X-Infinity).
1 brand might be good. Instead of HSI for internet and CDV for Comcast VOIP, an Xfinity brand could be used to market against Verizon & AT&T and their product suites. But I don't think existing customers will care. This is probably about marketing campaigns to other companies customers.
Now that Comcast is also going for quadruple play opportunities by adding wireless cell access, I guess we will hear about Xfinity Wireless as well.
No kidding. Comcast's standard internet tier is now $60 per month when you include modem rental. Their BASIC internet tier is $40! Though this is standalone, I can get DSL for $35 here that's much faster than CHSI Economy. That said, I don't want to.
It's nothing to do with Fios or U-Verse. It's got a lot to do with buying NBC and its networks. If a regular guy off the street buys the Xfinity product (triple play service), then they always call it Xfinity, even if everyone knows it's really just Comcast.
Look at Cablevision. Everyone who has their services has "Optimum" Online, TV, and Digital Phone service. You call it Optimum service. You call Optimum when things go sour. You don't call Cablevision (yes, you do, but mentally, you're trained to consider the company that you are calling to get help "Cablevision").
It's the same with Comcast. They're hoping to improve their brand, since now they'll have to be more involved with cable networks than they were previously, and dodge any negative publicity by casting it all off on the Xfinity brand.
Except that Optimum is a word which already has meaning (and in a positive sense). Xfinity isn't a word; has no meaning, and isn't enjoyable in the pronunciation department. Perhaps they could have put some clicks into the word or some silent letters.
Their marketing department should be given the boot.
Compared to the rest of the list, Chattanooga seems like a rather small market to deploy their new stuff to. Wonder if it might have anything to do with competition from Uverse, and more importantly from a local FTTH competitor?
Compared to the rest of the list, Chattanooga seems like a rather small market to deploy their new stuff to. Wonder if it might have anything to do with competition from Uverse, and more importantly from a local *FTTH competitor*?
Thanks for the scam and spam link
I think (hope) the link you wanted to post was: »epbfi.com/
Compared to the rest of the list, Chattanooga seems like a rather small market to deploy their new stuff to. Wonder if it might have anything to do with competition from Uverse, and more importantly from a local *FTTH competitor*?
Thanks for the scam and spam link
I think (hope) the link you wanted to post was: »epbfi.com/
* Hyperlink removed for safety *
My apologies. Typo'd and switched 2 of the letters. Fixed now.
It says Philadelphia for one of the markets....which would mean the freedom region (Philly Metro, NJ, SE PA). None of us have 100+ HD channels, and none of us have 50+ international channels. And yet we're still getting the Xfinity rebranding? Am I missing something here?
It says Philadelphia for one of the markets....which would mean the freedom region (Philly Metro, NJ, SE PA). None of us have 100+ HD channels [...]
They must be counting HD versions of premium-channels (HBO, SHO, Starz, etc.), which I'm presuming here actually exist (presuming because I don't get any, myself).
The 11/2009 "World of More" brochure for Center City Philly shows 71 confirmed HD channels, (30 of those new as of 11/09, btw), none of them the HD premiums.
Comcast will roll out the Xfinity brand anywhere they have fiber competition. That competition can come from FIOS or some home-grown fiber optic provider (or a regional one like TDS or CinBell if Comcast serves such areas now). U-Verse areas will be put lower on the list though Xfinity might go there to be "not so sucky TV" to compete with AT&T's excellent TelcoTV UI (yay M$). *Hopefully* the Denver metro will also get Xfinity due to Qwest's (very limited) VDSL2 deloyments in the area, but I'm not counting on it.
I'm guessing that the 100M internet tier is indeed real and will have 15 Mbps up, and will be priced where 50/10 is right now for residential users to stave off conversions to competitors. Eventually that tier will get rolled out cross-footprint but it will be used surgically for awhile against FTTH. Sucks for me, but whatever. Heck, 50/10 might go on promo in XFinity areas for $50 per month like I hear it does in certain cases. Pretty cool, though I can't seem to get that deal here.
As for CDV, CDV + HomePoint = XFinity Digital Voice. Throw in a DOCSIS 3.0 eMTA with the HomePoint functionality built in and that's that side of the equation.
For TV, let there be a better box. Oh please let there be a better box. Becuase, from what I hear, cable boxes are crappy. Fingers crossed for TV viewers out there.
One thing that's for certain: Comcast will try to push out lots of HD channels as part of XFinity. I'd expect Xfinity markets to go all-digital except for broadcast basic in order to free the bandwidth needed to push 00+ HD channels over the waveguide.
We'll see what happens. Hopefully the rumors about internet speed increases are true and 16/2 becomes 20/4, with a 100/15 tier being added on the top end (or morphed from 50/10) for whoever wants it. Which would consist of lots of small and medium businesses, plus super power users on the residential side and a college frat house or two, though those on my campus wold be reticent to part with their 50M+ symmetric connection via the campus network, which is now connected via a gigabit to the Interwebz.
Whatever they name it, it is of not much use to me. I thought it would be kind of cool to be able to watch my "cable tv" when I was traveling, but soon discovered that even though I could log into the system and it recognized me as a customer, I couldn't actually view anything because their servers refused to stream anything to me because I wasn't located in the US. So what's the point?
They are splitting the company to into 2 divisions, content and delivery. They are rebranding the delivery side to soften the impression that their other content customers (Time-Warner, Cablevision, etc.) that they are buying from a competitor. They will likely come up with a new name for the content side too, or operate it all under the NBC brand.
But when it comes down to it, nothing changes other than the prices, and they always go up. I've had service from 4 different cable companies over the years. Every one had common elements. Bad service, rude employees and high prices. I'm done with them and sticking with DirecTV.