Comcast founder Ralph Roberts, whose cable roots went back more than 50 years to a tiny operation serving around 1,200 customers in Tupelo, MS, passed away last night at the age of 95. [More]
comcast
Add Comcast To The List Of Rumored Merger Partners For T-Mobile
By 6.17.15
Not one to sit around and sulk after ditching its $45 billion bid to buy Time Warner Cable – or let a rival cable company beat it to the altar – the Lords of Kabletown are reportedly making eyes with the wireless industry, flirting with the idea of buying T-Mobile. [More]
Comcast Accused Of Deliberately Sabotaging Houston Sports Channel
By 6.11.15
Comcast Sportsnet Houston, which had exclusive access to Houston Rockets and Houston Astros games, was on the air less than a year when it was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2013. Not even a year later, the station — once valued at $700 million — was sold off to a joint venture of DirecTV and AT&T for a whopping $1,000. A new lawsuit accuses the cable company of deliberately submarining CSN Houston. [More]
Comcast Gives Woman’s E-Mail Address Away To Someone Else, But Bills Her For That Person’s Service
By 6.11.15
Given that Comcast has more than 20 million customers spread out around the country, you’d think it would have figured out how to handle billing two subscribers with the same name. But apparently the company is utterly baffled by this notion and has no problem with taking away one customer’s longtime e-mail address and giving it another subscriber, while at the same time sending the new customer’s bill to the wrong person. [More]
Comcast Launches New Support Forums For Customers To Help Each Other
By 6.10.15
Comcast is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in improving its public image (and hopefully its customer service), and part of that revamp is taking place in the newly relaunched Comcast support forums, where customers can get help from the people best poised to answer their questions: other Comcast customers. [More]
Is Comcast Running Manipulative “Push Poll” In Response To Philly Customer Service Study?
By 6.9.15
Earlier this spring, Philadelphia released its Needs Assessment Report regarding Comcast, the city’s primary cable/broadband provider, one of its biggest employers, and the tenant of its tallest tower. The results of the survey were not good, with 99% of the written responses unfavorable to Comcast. At the time, the company said the report was innaccurate and said it would “deliver comprehensive proof” to the city. A new telephone poll being conducted on Comcast’s behalf appears to be in response to the city’s report, but some who’ve taken the survey say the questions being asked are designed to put Comcast in the best possible light. [More]
Time Warner Cable Has Lowest Customer Satisfaction Score Of All U.S. Companies, Not Just Cable Providers
By 6.2.15
In news that backs up the results of a recent Consumer Reports survey, Time Warner Cable’s pay-TV service is not just dead last on the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s rankings of cable companies, but of all companies in the entire Index. [More]
Survey Says: Everyone Still Hates Comcast’s, TWC’s Customer Service
By 6.1.15
Comcast keeps promising that this is the year their legendarily bad customer service gets an overhaul, but consumers don’t seem to be buying it. A national survey asking consumers about cable and internet companies has, once again, dropped Comcast and Time Warner Cable right at the very bottom of the heap. [More]
Why Your Cable Company Doesn’t Always Know If Your New Address Gets Service
By 5.26.15
There’s a story we hear far too often: someone is buying a house. Before they put any money down, they do their research. They call the local cable/Internet provider to make sure they can get broadband service at this new address. They double-check. They triple-check. They search the property for wires, call back, and make sure they’ll be okay. Then they take out the mortgage, move in, and… surprise! There’s no broadband service after all, there won’t be any, and now they’re up a very expensive creek. [More]
FCC Chair: Relax, Cable Companies, Not All Mergers Are Necessarily Doomed Forever
By 5.22.15
The collapse of the much-discussed, absolutely enormous Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger earlier this year might have been an occasion for consumers and consumer advocates to cheer — but for businesses, it was much less good news. Cable companies that want to buy other cable companies are kind of freaked out: what if the FCC is hostile to their plans, too? [More]
The People Of Minneapolis May Someday Get To Choose Something Other Than Comcast
By 5.18.15
A year ago, when we investigated the sad state of broadband competition in the U.S., Minneapolis was one of the markets we mapped to to show just how few choices people had. As you can see from the map above, the city is almost exclusively Comcast territory, but that may change over the next five years thanks to a recent city council vote. [More]
Report: FCC May Look Into Comcast’s Don’t-Call-Them-Data-Caps If Implemented Nationwide
By 5.13.15
For more than two years, Comcast has been testing data caps — sorry, “data thresholds” — in various markets around the country. With the possibility of this usage-based pricing model being rolled out on a nationwide basis, a new report claims that the FCC could use its new authority to scrutinize the data limitations. [More]
Cable Company CEOs Now Say Net Neutrality Is Not A Threat To Their Business
By 5.8.15
In the months leading up to the FCC’s vote on new net neutrality rules, the cable industry claimed that reclassifying broadband service to treat it more like a utility would harm investment and innovation (not to mention the outright lie that it would give control of the Internet to the government). Now that Neutrality is on the books (but still a few weeks away from being implemented), some of the biggest names in the cable industry are now shrugging their shoulders and saying it’s really not a big deal. [More]
Comcast Says Customer Must Sign Non-Disclosure Agreement To Get $600 Refund
By 5.7.15
When your cable company has charged you hundreds of dollars for a cable box you returned five years ago, you’d hope that the response would be “Sorry about that. Here’s your money back,” not “We’ll give you your refund if you agree to not tell anyone about this.” [More]
Here Is Comcast’s 10-Point Action Plan For Winning Over Customers
By 5.6.15
For years, Comcast’s plan to win over customers was to do absolutely nothing because they — just like most cable companies — were the only choice. But with its pay-TV subscriber numbers dropping, the company is realizing that can indeed lose customers by treating them horribly. In an e-mail obtained by Consumerist, Comcast leadership has outlined its optimistic plan to win back all those customers who hate being residents of Kabletown. [More]
Comcast Customers Will Get $20 When Tech Shows Up Late
By 5.6.15
While many opponents of the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger were primarily concerned about putting too much control over the pay-TV and broadband markets in one company’s hands, some just really disliked Comcast for its history of abominable customer service. Now that this acquisition has failed, Comcast is promising to invest some of its money in turning that we-don’t-care image around. The company says it will be hiring thousands of new customer service staffers and customers whose Comcast techs don’t show up on time will receive $20 bill credits. [More]
Group Sponsored By Comcast Gives An Award To Comcast
By 5.5.15
Sometimes you have to pat yourself on the back after a job well done. But if you’re a company for whom accolades may be in short supply, it helps to sponsor (and have one of your executives be in charge of) a professional organization that is willing to give you an attaboy when you need one. [More]
Cablevision CEO: Pay-TV Is The “Milk & Eggs” Of His Business; Internet Is The “Soda & Chips”
By 5.4.15
As we noted earlier today, Comcast now effectively has exactly the same number of Internet customers as it does cable subscribers, and the Internet users will soon outnumber those who get their TV from Comcast. And while a pay-TV customer brings in significantly more gross revenue for a cable company than someone who is broadband-only, these companies are likely making more profit off their Internet users. [More]
