Comcast is generally well-insulated against a recession, though revenue from its theme parks and advertising is vulnerable, Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said Thursday. Speaking at MoffettNathanson's Media, Internet and Communications Conference, Armstrong said the company hasn't seen signs of a weakening economy yet. In addition, he said 90% of the traffic on Comcast's Xfinity Mobile business is offloaded onto its Wi-Fi network, a greater percentage than wireless companies offload. Comcast uses its citizens broadband radio service spectrum in particularly high-density areas to offload more of that traffic, lowering its mobile virtual network operator costs, Armstrong said. As Comcast continues to scale up its wireless offering, it can offload more traffic using the CBRS spectrum, he added. Comcast expects to eventually see fiber competition "in the vast majority of our footprint." By comparison, fixed wireless and SpaceX's Starlink will represent some competition, but they're capacity constrained, he said.
Cable One stock cratered Friday -- closing at $152.51, down $112.20 --- after the company's latest earnings saw declines in its broadband subscribership and the suspension of its quarterly dividend to shareholders. Cable One said Q1 revenue was $380.6 million, compared with $404.3 million in Q1 2024. The decline was largely driven by shrinking residential broadband and video subscriber numbers. The cable provider said it ended Q1 with 945,000 residential data customers, versus 967,000 in Q1 2024; 101,000 residential video customers, versus 126,000; and 65,000 residential voice subscribers, down from 76,000.
Charter Communications crossed the 10 million mobile lines mark in Q1 with its Xfinity Mobile service, ending the quarter with 10.4 million, it said Friday as it announced its latest financial results. With 2.1 million mobile lines added in the past year, Charter is the nation’s fastest-growing mobile provider, CEO Chris Winfrey said in a call with analysts.
The pay-TV set-top box market will continue contracting through the remainder of the decade, going from $8.6 billion in 2023 to $5.5 billion by 2030, ABI Research said Tuesday. It said the biggest decline during that span will be in North America.
Comcast is offering a five-year price guarantee for subscribers signing up for Xfinity internet, it said Tuesday. The package includes a mobile line and starts at $55 a month.
The Q4 2024 inflation adjustment figure for cable operators using Form 1240 is 2.34%, said the FCC Media Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics in Monday's Daily Digest. In the year-ago quarter it was 1.63%.
Section 18 of the FTC Act, which gives the agency power to establish rules that specifically define deceptive acts or practices, limits its rulemaking ability, and "click to cancel" is anything but specific, since it applies to a lot of contracts across the economy, petitioners told the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. NCTA and others are challenging "click to cancel" (see 2411220029). In a reply brief (docket 24-3137) to the FTC's response (see 2503170039), the petitioners said the FTC hasn't identified instances of problems commensurate with the rule’s economy-wide scope. They said the FTC's response also doesn't address the arbitrary and capricious aspects of the rule, such as how the agency downplayed the effects of the rule. There's no legal authority backing the FTC's request that the court limit relief to certain parts of the rule or to certain parties, they added.
U.S. cable operators should adopt a fiber-to-the-premises strategy to deal with increased fiber and fixed wireless competition, Analysys Mason's Simon Sherrington said during the consultancy's podcast Wednesday. Cable networks today pass 86% of U.S. residences, but fiber-based broadband providers will pass more than 75% of homes by 2030, creating "a huge cable and FTTP overlap" and putting even more competitive pressure on cable, Sherrington said. The fiber plans of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile would give them more than 100 million homes passed by 2030. While a lot of cable operators outside the U.S. are overbuilding their networks with FTTP, there's more focus in the U.S. on using DOCSIS technology to increase bandwidth and improve speeds, he added.
Altice USA faces a "more and more aggressive" competitive landscape, particularly from fiber overbuilders in its Western markets and fixed wireless in its Eastern ones, CEO Dennis Mathew said Wednesday at the New Street Research and BCG Future of Connectivity Leaders Conference. He said the fixed wireless competition is particularly centered on the poor, and Altice is changing its marketing approach for that segment in order to better compete. While Altice doesn't have sizable amounts of fiber in its own Western network, that's not a big impediment as the company has improved the quality of its hybrid fiber-coaxial network, he said. He added that Altice is about 70% overbuilt by fiber in its Eastern markets and expects fiber overbuilding in its Western ones -- now about 45% -- to reach a similar level.
As part of its goal to extend its network past 400,000 homes in new communities, WideOpenWest said Tuesday it had reached more than 100,000 additional households. That figure includes more than 80,000 fiber-to-the-home passings in its greenfield markets, as well as hybrid fiber-coaxial passings. The company announced market expansion plans in 2022.