I recently had a sales call from Comcast asking me who my service provider was? When I told him Google's speed was 5-gigs. His one question was... well, you never use all that speed, Why have it, what's the point? I replied, the same way... Comcast wants to rent their customers a modem that has a capacity of 5 gigs but can't possibly reach 5 gigs. Then Comcast refers to it as "future-proofing". So what's the point of "future-proofing" if you can't reach the speed that you claim? He hung up.
If you've ever worked customer service or telemarketing, you'd realize how cringe that story sounds right now lol. People who take those jobs couldn't care less.
6:54 I think the "50% overbuilt" number from Comcast refers to the percentage of Comcast's passed homes where they face a fiber competitor. In the ISP industry, "overbuilt" means that there is more than one provider offering service to a specific location.
Ah, I had the same conclusion. I think "overbuilt" vs "capacity" vs "overprovision" may have gotten mixed up somewhere. The full quote from Comcast: >In terms of competition, in terms of fiber, we are now 50% in terms of overbuilt. We expect by the end of '25 that will get to 60%. It will probably go higher than that. We have a long track record of competing against fiber 20 years at this point. So we do think fiber is quite frankly, the longer term competitor keeping our eye on, competing fiercely against fixed wireless and every competitor, but we anticipate where they're building, what they're doing, and keeping track of all of that. So like our results and encouraged when you look going into Q3, one of the reasons of optimism is that voluntary churn that continues to perform very well. And I think it's our superior network combined with better products and extreme focus on competition.
I need to say Thank You! It is thanks to this channel that my family cut our TV service from Xfinity, and most recently we cut the internet from them and switched to Quantum Fiber. Completely worth the switch (at least in Minnesota). I hated the 1.2TB limit, which convinced us to move to another company. Thanks to you Lon for spreading the message on the issues with the cable companies.
I've been a Comcast customer since buying my house in 2012. Dumped landline about 4 years ago, and TV 2 1/2 years ago, but kept internet, because it is very reliable. The service very rarely goes down. While T-Mobile and Verizon 5G internet are available where I am, my house has aluminum siding, and I don't always get a good cell signal in here. I often have to use WiFi calling to use my cell in the house, so it's best just to have it wired in. I know it costs more, but Comcast works so well for me that it's worth it. I got rid of the TV service because i was tired of paying for stuff I never watch, as well as retransmission fees for local channels, which i found that i can get for free with an antenna. I supplement this with a few streaming services, which change depending on what I want to watch. I also do not rent the modem/router from Comcast, I bought my own, it's already paid for itself and it works great.
I live in an apartment complex where they changed the Spectrum Cable TV to be used on Wifi basically moving you to a Roku or Xumo Player and shutting down the old style cable TV box system. Also, its exclusive so you cannot have another company while you rent there!!! So I don't have much choice unless I move out! 😡
@CommodoreFan64 um not that many. Even the few I've ran into still had an option to just opt out of everything. My last apartment before my house was finally finished actually had both cox (gigabit) and att DSL (~75mbps)
@@thedude5040 Lucky you, I live in the Austin Texas area and many of the better apartment complexes have a provider baked into the leases. I can choose to go wireless.. but I'm still paying for that provider specified in the lease.
@@thedude5040 5G is so bad and the quality is horrible in my experience. If you don’t want cable, get fiber from your local telephone company, and if it’s not available get something like starlink, 5G is so just so slow and bad it’s not gonna be faster than a T1 line. I would look into services like ATT fiber or Verizon FIOS
SE Wisconsin and I just got rid of Spectrum Internet service (cut their cable TV/phone in 2013 and went with over the air antenna) in favor of Frontier. I was getting 300/10 from Spectrum for 87.99 a month and moved to Frontier 2000/2000 for 99.99 a month. I'm a week and a half I am no longer saturating my network. Very pleased with it so far. For cellular service I am using US Mobile (2+ years now and love that service).
After 40 years of aggravation I dropped Comcast all together last year and I'm glad I did. This past May I accrued over 2TB of data usage which would have cost me a fortune with Comcast's 1.2TB cap. I also want to mention that T-Mobile is looking to aggressively expand their fiber network so if I were Comcast I would be very worried about the newcomers.
I hope the government continues to block mega mergers, they should also seriously reconsider letting an ISP company own a content company as well (Comcast owns NBC Universal). We're at a good stage right now but slowly the giant communication companies will look to acquire media companies so they can be vertically integrated.
Sony is looking to buy Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, so vertical integration is happening in the content creation and distribution realm everywhere you look.
I left Xfinity 2 months ago and it was 100% because of price.AT&T fiber came to town just over a year ago. Xfinity didn’t care I had a real option with fiber. Ok, I signed up right after that Xfinity call and 4 days later I had running fiber and canceled Xfinity. A lot harder to sign up a customer than keeping a customer. I have been getting my broadcast TV by an antenna for the last 12+ years.
ATT fiber cheapest plan is $55 month they don't even offer anything lower than 300 unless on low income internet. Comcast has Prepaid NOW for $30 100Mbps and $45 200Mbps
Today I just cancel my internet service because I find out they were charging me for the streaming box they told me were free,but it is hard to talk with a real person,so frustrating
Forgot to also mention in my other post, Comcast still imposes a data cap of 1.2TB and if you use more they want $30 on top of your subscription for unlimited. If you stream everything for TV with multiple people in the home and also use Xbox games pass or buy digital games you will hit the cap. With no competition they know they can keep doing this for as long as they want.
They never implemented the cap here in Connecticut.. They were about to and then the pandemic hit followed by the fiber and wireless competition. Haven't heard a peep about it since!
@@LonSeidman That’s what health competition should do. Sadly in CA I think Comcast has agreements with certain cities to be the dominant service. Weird thing is that Comcast drops the cap for their new prepaid NOW internet but keeps it for Xfinity. Hopefully change comes soon, I hear Sonic is being offered the chance to pick up where AT&T left off on the fiber buildout. With all my gripes on Xfinity I should note that the service itself is rock solid. They over provision the service, I pay for 1Gig but get a full 1.2Gig.
@@christiandunbar532 Yep. 2 kids and an elderly in-law that has a TV on in the background all the time. All 4K TV’s and 3 Xbox Series X’s. Games these days when you buy them are easily over 100GBs download now and updates 50+GB’s.
Let's face it. They don't have competition. That's why people don't leave. As soon as fiber came into my town. I dumped comcrap so fast. 45.00 a month 500 down 500 up. No caps . No bs billing.
I switched to from my cable provider to Verizon FIOS fiber service in 2008. Then in 2018 I decided to drop the TV Service and landline phone I had through FIOS. I wound up paying $40 a month for just internet. I mostly watch streaming and have a rooftop antenna for local broadcasts. I try to pay the least I can get away with to the internet provider.
The problem we have here in the suburbs of Nashville is that what competition exists isn't faster or cheaper enough to make it worth the hassle to switch. I get about 1.3Gbps on Comcast; AT&T fiber only offers 1Gbps here even though they offer up to 5Gbps in other parts of town. Google fiber keeps saying they are moving into our area, but I'll believe it when I see it, and if they still just have 1Gbps then I'm not interested. I work from home so somebody will need to offer a significant speed upgrade to make the disruption worth it to me - a few dollars a month in savings isn't much of an incentive compared to the effort to switch.
I’m stuck with the damn Comcast, I hate them so much, they offer only non simetric unreasonable expensive internet, with laughable upload speeds. And you can’t do anything because of monopoly, well not really, there is one more internet provider with even worse service and they do nothing to improve
I think there was misunderstanding about "overbuilt". Overbuilt in ISP terms means "more than 1 ISP is available at this customer's house". "Overbuilt" comes from the ancient cable ideology that each home should only have one ISP. Thus, fiber / home 5G has "overbuilt" (it is providing "more" / "extra" ISPs than literally necessary). So Comcast says 50% of their customers have a 2nd ISP option available.
Most cable companies have resolved to around $80 a month for Internet. I don't get more than 63 megabit despite claims. With no truck roll in over seven years, our household should be paying less.
Comcast and Xfinity 5:25 aren't worried because as you cut the cord they raise internet fees. In central IL where I am I'm paying near $180 a month just for 1.2 gig internet service. I get about 980 mbps download and 30mbps up. They have a monopoly here, there is no better service in my area.
No competition here yet. Just Spectrum. Cellphone is very marginal. I put one of those passive antennas on my kitchen window to help. I had been getting 25/2 for years. I was a "legacy customer". I didn't know that was talk for "we're screwing you". I cut the tv cable and my speed went to 300/10. But with my usage, I didn't really notice the difference except my computer OS updates are faster. But I am ok. I have learned not to complain much. It is what it is.
I have had fiber for a good 20 yrs, the service has had three different owners. Two months ago they dropped the cable TV service. So now I only have internet and phone service over the fiber. We got a sale price of $80 for one year of Peacock, and are happy with the free apps for other programing,
I work from home now and fiber isn't currently available to my apartment. I need/want more upload. I heard of a comcast network speed upgrade but haven't seen it yet.
Great video Lon and you are spot on. In our neighborhood we have all installed antennas, dropped cable TV and are streaming. But we can’t drop Comcast because our only other option is CenturyLink and they are beyond horrendous. We are going to get fiber optic from a company called Vexus but that won’t be for another year. Also a question for the community. I’m trying to install a Tablo on my WIFi that has a Comcast combined modem/router but keep running into a problem with the modem/router VPN. Does anyone know how to turn off the VPN?
I have not subscribed to cable TV in years. I believe an older demographic still has cable TV. I still have Comcast Cable Internet. My home will be ready for GigibitNow Fiber Internet in the Winter/Spring 2025.
It's Mediacom where I live in Farming area of MN There is Centrylink here, but it sucks, I've have been with Mediacom since 03 and probably will until I move or die. People also get antennas as well
I was talkiing to someone in the hotel business the other day and they're totally screwed if the cable companies decide to exit TV. It's one thing for individual households to convert to streaming, but how does that scale to distributing dozens of channels to a hundred or more hotel rooms simultaneously?
@will89687 Actually, not as hard as you may think. I work in the IT field and have installed/supported multiple systems on the enterprise level. TY channels can be modulated into whatever lineup is needed (think about hotels) and can use any signal(s) available. Satellite TV is the most common option, but we can already see 5G, Starlink, and several additional options coming down the pipe for television service. You can take a typical 5G cell phone and stream/modulate/demodulate hundreds of channels simultaneously. Again, this is more on a larger scale and usually cost prohibitive for home use.
I am willing to bet that 90% of Comcast’s customers that have those 500mbps or higher connections (70% of their customers) never use up more than say a third of the bandwidth (if that) that’s included in their plan. (A single Netflix 4K HDR stream for example only takes up about 15mbps.) So… if there is one thing the cable companies’ marketing departments have done a masterful job of - it’s convincing people to pay for *way* more bandwidth than they actually need!
@MaxPower-11 it uses far more. My router let's me see data flows per device and amazon 4k uhd rental movies use that much bandwidth. It used to be 35 but now I've noticed it creeping up towards 40. They are very high quality streams.
I got rid of my cable TV a fair while ago. I get my TV over the air. It works well for me. I have faster internet than I need and I don't generally stream anything so it it fine. I assume there will come a day when the mess up the OTA TV and I will stop having any TV but that is far in the future. ATSC-1.0 still is working and I get the channels I need. I haven't yet had to worry about the horrors of what happens when the switch over to ATSC-3.0 which as we all know causes your hair to fall out.
Where I live it’s Xfinity up to 1.2Gigs or AT&T DSL that maxes out at 50Mbps for $50/m. AT&T terminated their Fiber build out 3 years ago and stopped 2 blocks from me with no plans to resume build out. None of the wireless services offer home internet for us either, also with no stated plans to offer the service anytime in the future. According to our city none of the services plan to expand or offer expanded services in the next 5-10 years. So Comcast pretty much owns the place.
@@_-Karl-_Our dominant provider is Verizon, works everywhere. They also partner with Comcast as the provider for Xfinity Mobile, maybe an agreement to not step on toes. TMo is very limited, works only the middle of town and drops hard after that. AT&T is spotty. So I don’t think any of them have a reliable build to offer wireless home. Verizon could if they wanted to.
Interestingly enough, Cox just upgraded my upload speed from 30 Mbps to 100Mpbs with no additional charge (I have 1 Gig down). They are offering 2 Gigs down for $60/month more, but I really don't see the need (at least at this point in time).
An interesting video would be on Spectrum's "high split". We now have gigabit symmetric over coax and it is wild. I never knew DOCSIS 3.1 would even roll out to our homes, but we regularly get 1.1 Gbps down / 1.1 Gbps up through ancient coaxial (of course, we have a new high-split DOCSIS 3.1 modem).
$100+ in taxes to watch TV? + More for the actual service... My mother a 32 year cable customer who is addicted to tv and hates any type of change has even switched to using streaming services on fire sticks and local antenna tv. Everyone involved in TV has simply gotten too greedy.
I went from $240/month with Xfinity to $100 a month dropping the TV. I haven't watched garbage in 4 years. Comcast caught me off guard by sending me a new cable tv box for their new encryption standards.. so it woke me up and I said enough is enough and took all 3 boxes back in one trip. 300 down/24 up isn't bad for $100? Not sure why I would want to switch from xfinity.
Comcast has seemingly competitive prices when you just check the advertised price. Unfortunately the advertised prices are only about half of what your total bill be be because they basically force you to rent your equipment from them at ridiculous prices. This should be illegal, and you should be able to buy your own compatible equipment. That was required years ago, but thanks to Comcast's constant changing of their protocols the third party providers for cable boxes gave up. You can use your own modem and router but you lose many features that only come with the use of the Comcast gateway. In other words, in many parts of this country they still have monopoly powers and are quick to take advantage of customers. Not everyone has multiple choices available, especially if they do not live in a decent sized city. The only thing good I can say is their internet is much more reliable than various over the air or DSL offerings. I would love to have fiber, but there is no such option here and no one is planning to offer it.
I agree, and it seems like T-Mobile, and Verizon have been seeing huge growth with 5G Home Internet as a much cheaper option as many people realize for what they are doing they don't need expensive gigabit plans, when they are seeing speeds of 300 Mbps to over 800 Mbps down in a some areas. I have T-Mo 5G, and I'm seeing on average 500 Mbps to over 600 Mbps down, with 24ms idle ping times, and I could do even better if I were to do a proper outdoor antenna setup.
Comcast SHOULD be worried. In my suburb of Chicago AT&T installed fiber and marketing is pushing hard. There's also 5G. Comcast just increased their rate again, to the point I may be looking into switching. Poor upload speeds are becoming a problem for me. As for the cord cutting, "TV" just keeps getting worse and worse. I haven't watched for over two years. The big "TV" sits dark in the corner and the little TVs - I forget where I put them. What are people doing instead? Streaming? I watch RUclips. (Too much.) That is where I now watch video news. Better content. Content that I can select.
And Comcast has begun the national rollout of DOCSIS 4.0, which has gigabit-speed true symmetrical service. Paired with a WiFi 7 (802.11be) router, most portable devices that support at least WiFi 6E might be able to push close to gigabit speeds over WiFi.
Technically, almost every cable ISP today *is* using "HFC", which is hybrid fiber-coaxial: it's fiber 99% of the distance, but the last-mile is coax. But, that is being rather petulant; I understand what you mean, e.g.,. cable ISPs offer both last-mile coax and last-mile fiber. That last mile is what is the most expensive to replace, so it's stayed coax for a while now.
@@LonSeidman Ah, 6:58, that's quite right. I misunderstood 8:47, "You might see Comcast slowly switching over to some hybrid fiber network to be able to compete with that"; my mind jumped to "HFC", but you are rightly sharing Comcast expanding its FTTH deployments. My apologies.
Just getting ready to cancel my Spectrum TV, along with Distributed Video and go with some type of streaming service with Roku/Wiim for audio. Not sure who the best streaming is. Got to get SEC TV since football season is coming!
I love in Central Valley California and the only two Internet provider with fast speeds are Comcast/XFinity or AT&T. I stay with XFinity because I can get 500 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. AT&T only offer 100 Mbps down.
In some situations it is the only option to cut the cord. Personally, TV is more natural than streaming. The problem with TV is the intrusive medical and bombardment of law commercials. If this continues then TV will go the way of the dodo. It's a shame how much greed is ruining our society, culture and causing more problems. I personally don't subscribe to streaming services because there are too many and it is too confusing and overwhelming to want to sit down and decide what I want to purchase as my media consumption interests. I watch Twitch and friends stream, and RUclips so all of my entertainment media needs are met, and for free!
I'm on xgs-pon in Ottawa Canada, we have 3gig symmetrical here, it's around 100 bucks canadian monthly. They have some reliability issues with the network core ('internet at 3Gbps' threads in the dslreports Bell forum for fun reading) but the modems and quality of ftth are both great. I just run openwrt on a pc with a dual-10gbe card for my firewall/router
We only have one isp and that's by our township only having one isp by contract. Yes we now have the cell phone providers giving their products now but thats it. The city next to us tried to make their own isp and charge reasonable rates. The local isp in the city threw a fit, making inaccurate claims and whatever else a corporation does to make sure that the government isp would not function because government competing with them? The city limited the service to a small slice of downtown.
I'm on the other side of the state from you about 25 mins from Aiken, and I was getting ripped off big time by Breezeline cable, so in Feb 2023 I gave T-Mobile 5G a shot, and have been really happy for the money I'm paying(50 a month) seeing over 600 Mbps down a lot of days with just a stock Gateway sitting by a window.
@@CommodoreFan64 I'm in Aiken and I was getting ripped off by Breezeline (Atlantic Broadband at the time), too. I went from paying $75-80 with them for 300/20 Internet speed to 1000/1000 at $55 for the first year with AT&T fiber, which I switched to in September 2021. The fiber was put in late spring of 2021. My price went up $20 after the first year and is currently $82. I also get Max included with the AT&T internet (the $16 HD no ads but no 4k plan). I doubt I will ever go back to Breezeline. When they had no competition they treated me poorly and price gouged me. The only reason my plan when I canceled was that reasonable, was because I was forced to sign up as a new customer, by using my mother in law's name. They wouldn't either waive a reconnection fee or give me a discount on my pkg. I had 120Mb down, 12 Mb up for $75 and new cust were getting that speed for $25 or 250/20 for $50, which is what I chose. 3 years later, when I switched it was close to $80. I also had to go through the hassle of changing the name on the acct back to me, in the middle of that time period because my wife's parents moved out.
@@frommatorav1 I hear ya, but I can't get AT&T Fiber in Jackson, and Frontier has been talking fiber roll out for a few years now to replace their BS DSL, but it's been all crickets, which is why I went T-Mobile 5G. Having said that I'm stuck with Breezeline at work, and the idle ping times are worse than T-Mobile 5G 😅
@@CommodoreFan64 I'm glad you at least have good T-mobile service to use instead. I was just echoing that breezeline (Atlantic Broadband) treated me shitty when there wasn't any competition. I get a postcard about every other month trying to get me back... um NO
Back in Feb 2023 I decided to give T-MO 5G home Internet a shot as Breezeline cable was over charging me for crap speed, and I'm getting close to 600 Mbps/100 Mbps on average on my gateway with good ping times, and I know I can get even better speeds If ever decide to put up 5G outdoor Antenna, so for the money I'm overall happy with the service, and won't be going back unless Breezeline can beat the speeds for a lot less money.
Why Comcast has bandwidth on their network? Government subsidies based on federal taxes and people leaving their network based on price. Why 70% 500Mbs down? Their constant and active promotions to upcharge customers to increase their tier of network support. One click to upgrade. 90% of the 70% percent don't need 500Mbs. They either upgraded by accident or were lead to believe that it's better for them. You talk about symmetrical speeds. Great if you can get that from cable. Not in any area I've ever lived; 300/10 or 500/10. Highspeed up traffic is very very localized.
I think the third largest cable provider, Cox, isn't mentioned more because they are privately owned. Look at online reviews in the areas they provide service. People want competition from companies other than cable, and their response of bundling cell phone service to retain internet subscribers is going to eventually backfire on them.
I used to be a cox customer, their internet only options are okay, if you don't have fiber or 5g wireless options. I was never pressured to use them for mobile cell service
No reason to be worried when you can sell the tv subscribers an Internet connection for the services they want, and that Internet connection is nearly pure profit, largely due to the cheap cost of delivering internet and not paying any licensing fees for content.
People, find another TV and Internet provider than Comcast. Their billing department is awful and products overpriced. We need to put this company out of business.
Last I checked I couldn't get home Internet from the big wireless Internet providers. I only have 1 decent option for home Internet. #nocompetitionhere #notwinninghere #😢
What you're leaving out is that Comcast is one of the most expensive and also one of the slower internet providers out there. Comcast as a cable television provider was a quasi Monopoly in a majority of areas they were in. But as an Internet Service Provider they have competition from Amazon, Walmart, Google, Spectrum, AT&T, T-Mobile, Charter, Verizon, CenturyLink, etc. So Comcast isn't all that thrilled about losing all of those cable subscribers. All of those cables subscribers that are cutting the cord are not staying with Comcast to be their ISP. They're making a clean break.
I believe I covered those points in the video - at the moment the numbers indicate most people aren’t dropping Comcast completely and keeping the Internet service
@@LonSeidman You do understand on April 25th the FCC reinstated Net Neutrality, right? That completely changes Comcast's business model. They cannot raise prices to websites like Google based on high traffic. By the end of Q4, their profits will drop.
I have no coverage from t-mobile or verrizon. We do have a local provider with speeds up to 30mb. :) Then there is AT&T DSL which is even slower and intermittent. It's really Optimum or nothing here (starlink? - nah, wouldn't consider it).
Why did I quit Comcrap? Cost. Much of the cost is to programming like MSNBC and any other acquisitions that do not help the consumer. It is all for stock holders. When I told my reasons to the CS rep, it was silent on the other end. There was nothing that they could say to keep me.
Lon I'm saying this as a fan that wants to see you improve: those AI thumbnails you've been doing recently look horrendous, using AI art is for people who do not care about the quality of their work and I know you're not one of them so please go back to the more basic ones that are just the standard logo for the company you're talking about with some basic editing, they're in way better taste
I am planning to get glo fiber internet. Do you have any reason why I may be making a poor decision with Glo Fiber? I really want fiber real high speed internet. Thank you.
Copper can not compete with fibre optic. In Canada, Bell guarantees a max of 1.5 Tb download speeds and has an average of 800 Mb to 1 Tb in major cities and a little less in rural areas
Your modem is authentication. The MAC of the equipment needs to be in the system or it won't work. That's with HFC networks. With fiber it's usually an ONT but I have a fiber modem with my service. I still think no acct = no service, whether it's fiber or hybrid fiber coax.
I recently had a sales call from Comcast asking me who my service provider was? When I told him Google's speed was 5-gigs. His one question was... well, you never use all that speed, Why have it, what's the point?
I replied, the same way... Comcast wants to rent their customers a modem that has a capacity of 5 gigs but can't possibly reach 5 gigs. Then Comcast refers to it as "future-proofing". So what's the point of "future-proofing" if you can't reach the speed that you claim? He hung up.
What really matters is the price you pay for google Fiber. All fiber ISPs are way less expensive than Xfinity.
@@JohnPollack-em8xj True.
If you've ever worked customer service or telemarketing, you'd realize how cringe that story sounds right now lol. People who take those jobs couldn't care less.
6:54 I think the "50% overbuilt" number from Comcast refers to the percentage of Comcast's passed homes where they face a fiber competitor. In the ISP industry, "overbuilt" means that there is more than one provider offering service to a specific location.
That's my understanding of "overbuilt," too.
Ah, I had the same conclusion. I think "overbuilt" vs "capacity" vs "overprovision" may have gotten mixed up somewhere. The full quote from Comcast:
>In terms of competition, in terms of fiber, we are now 50% in terms of overbuilt. We expect by the end of '25 that will get to 60%. It will probably go higher than that. We have a long track record of competing against fiber 20 years at this point. So we do think fiber is quite frankly, the longer term competitor keeping our eye on, competing fiercely against fixed wireless and every competitor, but we anticipate where they're building, what they're doing, and keeping track of all of that. So like our results and encouraged when you look going into Q3, one of the reasons of optimism is that voluntary churn that continues to perform very well. And I think it's our superior network combined with better products and extreme focus on competition.
I need to say Thank You! It is thanks to this channel that my family cut our TV service from Xfinity, and most recently we cut the internet from them and switched to Quantum Fiber. Completely worth the switch (at least in Minnesota). I hated the 1.2TB limit, which convinced us to move to another company. Thanks to you Lon for spreading the message on the issues with the cable companies.
I've been a Comcast customer since buying my house in 2012. Dumped landline about 4 years ago, and TV 2 1/2 years ago, but kept internet, because it is very reliable. The service very rarely goes down. While T-Mobile and Verizon 5G internet are available where I am, my house has aluminum siding, and I don't always get a good cell signal in here. I often have to use WiFi calling to use my cell in the house, so it's best just to have it wired in. I know it costs more, but Comcast works so well for me that it's worth it. I got rid of the TV service because i was tired of paying for stuff I never watch, as well as retransmission fees for local channels, which i found that i can get for free with an antenna. I supplement this with a few streaming services, which change depending on what I want to watch. I also do not rent the modem/router from Comcast, I bought my own, it's already paid for itself and it works great.
@@christinemurphy7683 Comcast is the only ISP I get good speeds with.
I live in an apartment complex where they changed the Spectrum Cable TV to be used on Wifi basically moving you to a Roku or Xumo Player and shutting down the old style cable TV box system. Also, its exclusive so you cannot have another company while you rent there!!! So I don't have much choice unless I move out! 😡
Tmobile or verizion home 5g?
@@thedude5040 Many apartment buildings in the contract force you to pay for whatever cable, or ISP service they go with.
@CommodoreFan64 um not that many. Even the few I've ran into still had an option to just opt out of everything. My last apartment before my house was finally finished actually had both cox (gigabit) and att DSL (~75mbps)
@@thedude5040 Lucky you, I live in the Austin Texas area and many of the better apartment complexes have a provider baked into the leases. I can choose to go wireless.. but I'm still paying for that provider specified in the lease.
@@thedude5040 5G is so bad and the quality is horrible in my experience. If you don’t want cable, get fiber from your local telephone company, and if it’s not available get something like starlink, 5G is so just so slow and bad it’s not gonna be faster than a T1 line. I would look into services like ATT fiber or Verizon FIOS
SE Wisconsin and I just got rid of Spectrum Internet service (cut their cable TV/phone in 2013 and went with over the air antenna) in favor of Frontier. I was getting 300/10 from Spectrum for 87.99 a month and moved to Frontier 2000/2000 for 99.99 a month. I'm a week and a half I am no longer saturating my network. Very pleased with it so far. For cellular service I am using US Mobile (2+ years now and love that service).
After 40 years of aggravation I dropped Comcast all together last year and I'm glad I did. This past May I accrued over 2TB of data usage which would have cost me a fortune with Comcast's 1.2TB cap.
I also want to mention that T-Mobile is looking to aggressively expand their fiber network so if I were Comcast I would be very worried about the newcomers.
I hope the government continues to block mega mergers, they should also seriously reconsider letting an ISP company own a content company as well (Comcast owns NBC Universal). We're at a good stage right now but slowly the giant communication companies will look to acquire media companies so they can be vertically integrated.
AT&T owned Warner Bros. for three years before selling it to Discovery. Comcast seemed just to be lucky with how the NBC Universal integration went.
Sony is looking to buy Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, so vertical integration is happening in the content creation and distribution realm everywhere you look.
I left Xfinity 2 months ago and it was 100% because of price.AT&T fiber came to town just over a year ago. Xfinity didn’t care I had a real option with fiber. Ok, I signed up right after that Xfinity call and 4 days later I had running fiber and canceled Xfinity. A lot harder to sign up a customer than keeping a customer. I have been getting my broadcast TV by an antenna for the last 12+ years.
ATT fiber cheapest plan is $55 month they don't even offer anything lower than 300 unless on low income internet. Comcast has Prepaid NOW for $30 100Mbps and $45 200Mbps
I cut my cable company completely. I am using Verizon 5g home for almost two years now and have been very happy with them!
Today I just cancel my internet service because I find out they were charging me for the streaming box they told me were free,but it is hard to talk with a real person,so frustrating
The streaming box is often free for a promotional period the it starts costing you
They give a deal on price the first year then double. Triple the price after the first year. They ripoff everybody
If you want unlimited internet 25 more
Forgot to also mention in my other post, Comcast still imposes a data cap of 1.2TB and if you use more they want $30 on top of your subscription for unlimited. If you stream everything for TV with multiple people in the home and also use Xbox games pass or buy digital games you will hit the cap. With no competition they know they can keep doing this for as long as they want.
They never implemented the cap here in Connecticut.. They were about to and then the pandemic hit followed by the fiber and wireless competition. Haven't heard a peep about it since!
I game and my wife streams all the time, and we get no where near 1TB.
@@thedude5040you must not have kids
@@LonSeidman That’s what health competition should do. Sadly in CA I think Comcast has agreements with certain cities to be the dominant service. Weird thing is that Comcast drops the cap for their new prepaid NOW internet but keeps it for Xfinity. Hopefully change comes soon, I hear Sonic is being offered the chance to pick up where AT&T left off on the fiber buildout. With all my gripes on Xfinity I should note that the service itself is rock solid. They over provision the service, I pay for 1Gig but get a full 1.2Gig.
@@christiandunbar532 Yep. 2 kids and an elderly in-law that has a TV on in the background all the time. All 4K TV’s and 3 Xbox Series X’s. Games these days when you buy them are easily over 100GBs download now and updates 50+GB’s.
Let's face it. They don't have competition. That's why people don't leave. As soon as fiber came into my town. I dumped comcrap so fast. 45.00 a month 500 down 500 up. No caps . No bs billing.
I switched to from my cable provider to Verizon FIOS fiber service in 2008. Then in 2018 I decided to drop the TV Service and landline phone I had through FIOS. I wound up paying $40 a month for just internet. I mostly watch streaming and have a rooftop antenna for local broadcasts. I try to pay the least I can get away with to the internet provider.
The problem we have here in the suburbs of Nashville is that what competition exists isn't faster or cheaper enough to make it worth the hassle to switch. I get about 1.3Gbps on Comcast; AT&T fiber only offers 1Gbps here even though they offer up to 5Gbps in other parts of town. Google fiber keeps saying they are moving into our area, but I'll believe it when I see it, and if they still just have 1Gbps then I'm not interested. I work from home so somebody will need to offer a significant speed upgrade to make the disruption worth it to me - a few dollars a month in savings isn't much of an incentive compared to the effort to switch.
I’m stuck with the damn Comcast, I hate them so much, they offer only non simetric unreasonable expensive internet, with laughable upload speeds. And you can’t do anything because of monopoly, well not really, there is one more internet provider with even worse service and they do nothing to improve
I think there was misunderstanding about "overbuilt". Overbuilt in ISP terms means "more than 1 ISP is available at this customer's house". "Overbuilt" comes from the ancient cable ideology that each home should only have one ISP. Thus, fiber / home 5G has "overbuilt" (it is providing "more" / "extra" ISPs than literally necessary). So Comcast says 50% of their customers have a 2nd ISP option available.
For a quick explanation: "what is overbuilding telecom" or "what is overbuilding ISP" give me good results.
@@ikjadoon That’s hilarious 😂
Most cable companies have resolved to around $80 a month for Internet. I don't get more than 63 megabit despite claims. With no truck roll in over seven years, our household should be paying less.
Comcast and Xfinity 5:25 aren't worried because as you cut the cord they raise internet fees. In central IL where I am I'm paying near $180 a month just for 1.2 gig internet service. I get about 980 mbps download and 30mbps up. They have a monopoly here, there is no better service in my area.
No competition here yet. Just Spectrum. Cellphone is very marginal. I put one of those passive antennas on my kitchen window to help.
I had been getting 25/2 for years. I was a "legacy customer". I didn't know that was talk for "we're screwing you".
I cut the tv cable and my speed went to 300/10. But with my usage, I didn't really notice the difference except my computer OS updates are faster.
But I am ok. I have learned not to complain much. It is what it is.
Ding ding ding. Your about the only person who told it right about how these companies are sticking around.
Starlink stands to be a formidable competitor. It's still relatively new but as it expands equipment and plan costs are likely to go down.
I have had fiber for a good 20 yrs, the service has had three different owners. Two months ago they dropped the cable TV service. So now I only have internet and phone service over the fiber. We got a sale price of $80 for one year of Peacock, and are happy with the free apps for other programing,
I work from home now and fiber isn't currently available to my apartment. I need/want more upload. I heard of a comcast network speed upgrade but haven't seen it yet.
Great video Lon and you are spot on. In our neighborhood we have all installed antennas, dropped cable TV and are streaming. But we can’t drop Comcast because our only other option is CenturyLink and they are beyond horrendous. We are going to get fiber optic from a company called Vexus but that won’t be for another year. Also a question for the community. I’m trying to install a Tablo on my WIFi that has a Comcast combined modem/router but keep running into a problem with the modem/router VPN. Does anyone know how to turn off the VPN?
I have not subscribed to cable TV in years. I believe an older demographic still has cable TV. I still have Comcast Cable Internet. My home will be ready for GigibitNow Fiber Internet in the Winter/Spring 2025.
It's Mediacom where I live in Farming area of MN
There is Centrylink here, but it sucks, I've have been with Mediacom since 03 and probably will until I move or die.
People also get antennas as well
I was talkiing to someone in the hotel business the other day and they're totally screwed if the cable companies decide to exit TV. It's one thing for individual households to convert to streaming, but how does that scale to distributing dozens of channels to a hundred or more hotel rooms simultaneously?
@will89687 Actually, not as hard as you may think. I work in the IT field and have installed/supported multiple systems on the enterprise level. TY channels can be modulated into whatever lineup is needed (think about hotels) and can use any signal(s) available. Satellite TV is the most common option, but we can already see 5G, Starlink, and several additional options coming down the pipe for television service. You can take a typical 5G cell phone and stream/modulate/demodulate hundreds of channels simultaneously. Again, this is more on a larger scale and usually cost prohibitive for home use.
I am willing to bet that 90% of Comcast’s customers that have those 500mbps or higher connections (70% of their customers) never use up more than say a third of the bandwidth (if that) that’s included in their plan. (A single Netflix 4K HDR stream for example only takes up about 15mbps.) So… if there is one thing the cable companies’ marketing departments have done a masterful job of - it’s convincing people to pay for *way* more bandwidth than they actually need!
Amazon 4k uhd movie rental is between 35-40mbps
@MaxPower-11 it uses far more. My router let's me see data flows per device and amazon 4k uhd rental movies use that much bandwidth. It used to be 35 but now I've noticed it creeping up towards 40. They are very high quality streams.
Every time I try to lower the speed to lower my price it never makes sense to do so.
@joewozniak2231 why?
@@thedude5040 because the make the price difference so little that it doesn’t make sense. They want everyone on the higher speeds.
I got rid of my cable TV a fair while ago. I get my TV over the air. It works well for me.
I have faster internet than I need and I don't generally stream anything so it it fine.
I assume there will come a day when the mess up the OTA TV and I will stop having any TV but that is far in the future. ATSC-1.0 still is working and I get the channels I need. I haven't yet had to worry about the horrors of what happens when the switch over to ATSC-3.0 which as we all know causes your hair to fall out.
Where I live it’s Xfinity up to 1.2Gigs or AT&T DSL that maxes out at 50Mbps for $50/m. AT&T terminated their Fiber build out 3 years ago and stopped 2 blocks from me with no plans to resume build out. None of the wireless services offer home internet for us either, also with no stated plans to offer the service anytime in the future. According to our city none of the services plan to expand or offer expanded services in the next 5-10 years. So Comcast pretty much owns the place.
@@_-Karl-_Our dominant provider is Verizon, works everywhere. They also partner with Comcast as the provider for Xfinity Mobile, maybe an agreement to not step on toes. TMo is very limited, works only the middle of town and drops hard after that. AT&T is spotty. So I don’t think any of them have a reliable build to offer wireless home. Verizon could if they wanted to.
Interestingly enough, Cox just upgraded my upload speed from 30 Mbps to 100Mpbs with no additional charge (I have 1 Gig down). They are offering 2 Gigs down for $60/month more, but I really don't see the need (at least at this point in time).
An interesting video would be on Spectrum's "high split". We now have gigabit symmetric over coax and it is wild. I never knew DOCSIS 3.1 would even roll out to our homes, but we regularly get 1.1 Gbps down / 1.1 Gbps up through ancient coaxial (of course, we have a new high-split DOCSIS 3.1 modem).
$100+ in taxes to watch TV? + More for the actual service... My mother a 32 year cable customer who is addicted to tv and hates any type of change has even switched to using streaming services on fire sticks and local antenna tv. Everyone involved in TV has simply gotten too greedy.
I went from $240/month with Xfinity to $100 a month dropping the TV. I haven't watched garbage in 4 years. Comcast caught me off guard by sending me a new cable tv box for their new encryption standards.. so it woke me up and I said enough is enough and took all 3 boxes back in one trip. 300 down/24 up isn't bad for $100? Not sure why I would want to switch from xfinity.
Guess it depends on where you live. I get 500 down 25 up from Comcast for $55 with the $10 dollar discount for bank account.
Comcast has seemingly competitive prices when you just check the advertised price. Unfortunately the advertised prices are only about half of what your total bill be be because they basically force you to rent your equipment from them at ridiculous prices. This should be illegal, and you should be able to buy your own compatible equipment. That was required years ago, but thanks to Comcast's constant changing of their protocols the third party providers for cable boxes gave up. You can use your own modem and router but you lose many features that only come with the use of the Comcast gateway. In other words, in many parts of this country they still have monopoly powers and are quick to take advantage of customers. Not everyone has multiple choices available, especially if they do not live in a decent sized city. The only thing good I can say is their internet is much more reliable than various over the air or DSL offerings. I would love to have fiber, but there is no such option here and no one is planning to offer it.
Down 300k internet customers seems like a problem.
I agree, and it seems like T-Mobile, and Verizon have been seeing huge growth with 5G Home Internet as a much cheaper option as many people realize for what they are doing they don't need expensive gigabit plans, when they are seeing speeds of 300 Mbps to over 800 Mbps down in a some areas. I have T-Mo 5G, and I'm seeing on average 500 Mbps to over 600 Mbps down, with 24ms idle ping times, and I could do even better if I were to do a proper outdoor antenna setup.
Comcast SHOULD be worried. In my suburb of Chicago AT&T installed fiber and marketing is pushing hard. There's also 5G. Comcast just increased their rate again, to the point I may be looking into switching. Poor upload speeds are becoming a problem for me.
As for the cord cutting, "TV" just keeps getting worse and worse. I haven't watched for over two years. The big "TV" sits dark in the corner and the little TVs - I forget where I put them. What are people doing instead? Streaming? I watch RUclips. (Too much.) That is where I now watch video news. Better content. Content that I can select.
And Comcast has begun the national rollout of DOCSIS 4.0, which has gigabit-speed true symmetrical service. Paired with a WiFi 7 (802.11be) router, most portable devices that support at least WiFi 6E might be able to push close to gigabit speeds over WiFi.
Technically, almost every cable ISP today *is* using "HFC", which is hybrid fiber-coaxial: it's fiber 99% of the distance, but the last-mile is coax. But, that is being rather petulant; I understand what you mean, e.g.,. cable ISPs offer both last-mile coax and last-mile fiber. That last mile is what is the most expensive to replace, so it's stayed coax for a while now.
Yes I mentioned that in the video
@@LonSeidman Ah, 6:58, that's quite right. I misunderstood 8:47, "You might see Comcast slowly switching over to some hybrid fiber network to be able to compete with that"; my mind jumped to "HFC", but you are rightly sharing Comcast expanding its FTTH deployments. My apologies.
Just getting ready to cancel my Spectrum TV, along with Distributed Video and go with some type of streaming service with Roku/Wiim for audio. Not sure who the best streaming is. Got to get SEC TV since football season is coming!
I love in Central Valley California and the only two Internet provider with fast speeds are Comcast/XFinity or AT&T. I stay with XFinity because I can get 500 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up. AT&T only offer 100 Mbps down.
LonBall I just physically cut the cord in my house and everything went out. Can I glue the wire together with maple syrup?
Only if you're in upstate NT, VT, NH, or Maine. If not then just use Elmer's white glue, the stuff you get at the crafts store.
Yes you have to crystalize it first and you're good . Just resist the urge to lick it later.
Unfortunately, where I'm at it's Comcast or DSL. :(
In some situations it is the only option to cut the cord. Personally, TV is more natural than streaming. The problem with TV is the intrusive medical and bombardment of law commercials. If this continues then TV will go the way of the dodo. It's a shame how much greed is ruining our society, culture and causing more problems.
I personally don't subscribe to streaming services because there are too many and it is too confusing and overwhelming to want to sit down and decide what I want to purchase as my media consumption interests. I watch Twitch and friends stream, and RUclips so all of my entertainment media needs are met, and for free!
I'm on xgs-pon in Ottawa Canada, we have 3gig symmetrical here, it's around 100 bucks canadian monthly. They have some reliability issues with the network core ('internet at 3Gbps' threads in the dslreports Bell forum for fun reading) but the modems and quality of ftth are both great. I just run openwrt on a pc with a dual-10gbe card for my firewall/router
I got frontier 5gig. Loooove it.
We only have one isp and that's by our township only having one isp by contract. Yes we now have the cell phone providers giving their products now but thats it.
The city next to us tried to make their own isp and charge reasonable rates. The local isp in the city threw a fit, making inaccurate claims and whatever else a corporation does to make sure that the government isp would not function because government competing with them? The city limited the service to a small slice of downtown.
Keep in mind some are rolling to other ISPs. Ex. in South Carolina HTC is our fiber provider & the growth here is huge.
I'm on the other side of the state from you about 25 mins from Aiken, and I was getting ripped off big time by Breezeline cable, so in Feb 2023 I gave T-Mobile 5G a shot, and have been really happy for the money I'm paying(50 a month) seeing over 600 Mbps down a lot of days with just a stock Gateway sitting by a window.
@@CommodoreFan64 I'm in Aiken and I was getting ripped off by Breezeline (Atlantic Broadband at the time), too. I went from paying $75-80 with them for 300/20 Internet speed to 1000/1000 at $55 for the first year with AT&T fiber, which I switched to in September 2021. The fiber was put in late spring of 2021. My price went up $20 after the first year and is currently $82. I also get Max included with the AT&T internet (the $16 HD no ads but no 4k plan).
I doubt I will ever go back to Breezeline. When they had no competition they treated me poorly and price gouged me. The only reason my plan when I canceled was that reasonable, was because I was forced to sign up as a new customer, by using my mother in law's name. They wouldn't either waive a reconnection fee or give me a discount on my pkg. I had 120Mb down, 12 Mb up for $75 and new cust were getting that speed for $25 or 250/20 for $50, which is what I chose. 3 years later, when I switched it was close to $80. I also had to go through the hassle of changing the name on the acct back to me, in the middle of that time period because my wife's parents moved out.
@@frommatorav1 I hear ya, but I can't get AT&T Fiber in Jackson, and Frontier has been talking fiber roll out for a few years now to replace their BS DSL, but it's been all crickets, which is why I went T-Mobile 5G. Having said that I'm stuck with Breezeline at work, and the idle ping times are worse than T-Mobile 5G 😅
@@CommodoreFan64 I'm glad you at least have good T-mobile service to use instead.
I was just echoing that breezeline (Atlantic Broadband) treated me shitty when there wasn't any competition. I get a postcard about every other month trying to get me back... um NO
Back in Feb 2023 I decided to give T-MO 5G home Internet a shot as Breezeline cable was over charging me for crap speed, and I'm getting close to 600 Mbps/100 Mbps on average on my gateway with good ping times, and I know I can get even better speeds If ever decide to put up 5G outdoor Antenna, so for the money I'm overall happy with the service, and won't be going back unless Breezeline can beat the speeds for a lot less money.
F Breezeline. for full story, see my other reply comment.
At 2:46 looking at URL after slash the middle 8 characters describe Comcast just fine 😳
Why Comcast has bandwidth on their network? Government subsidies based on federal taxes and people leaving their network based on price. Why 70% 500Mbs down? Their constant and active promotions to upcharge customers to increase their tier of network support. One click to upgrade. 90% of the 70% percent don't need 500Mbs. They either upgraded by accident or were lead to believe that it's better for them. You talk about symmetrical speeds. Great if you can get that from cable. Not in any area I've ever lived; 300/10 or 500/10. Highspeed up traffic is very very localized.
Outdoor antennas are coming back
i think in most areas there are not many comparable options
Spectrum is the only choice I have here for fast internet
I think the third largest cable provider, Cox, isn't mentioned more because they are privately owned. Look at online reviews in the areas they provide service. People want competition from companies other than cable, and their response of bundling cell phone service to retain internet subscribers is going to eventually backfire on them.
I used to be a cox customer, their internet only options are okay, if you don't have fiber or 5g wireless options. I was never pressured to use them for mobile cell service
Will be ditching starlink for Xfinity fiber in the next couple or weeks
No reason to be worried when you can sell the tv subscribers an Internet connection for the services they want, and that Internet connection is nearly pure profit, largely due to the cheap cost of delivering internet and not paying any licensing fees for content.
People, find another TV and Internet provider than Comcast. Their billing department is awful and products overpriced. We need to put this company out of business.
Last I checked I couldn't get home Internet from the big wireless Internet providers. I only have 1 decent option for home Internet. #nocompetitionhere #notwinninghere #😢
Sounds like the Cable Broadcasting industry itself is heading for a crash
What you're leaving out is that Comcast is one of the most expensive and also one of the slower internet providers out there.
Comcast as a cable television provider was a quasi Monopoly in a majority of areas they were in. But as an Internet Service Provider they have competition from Amazon, Walmart, Google, Spectrum, AT&T, T-Mobile, Charter, Verizon, CenturyLink, etc.
So Comcast isn't all that thrilled about losing all of those cable subscribers. All of those cables subscribers that are cutting the cord are not staying with Comcast to be their ISP. They're making a clean break.
I believe I covered those points in the video - at the moment the numbers indicate most people aren’t dropping Comcast completely and keeping the Internet service
@@LonSeidman You do understand on April 25th the FCC reinstated Net Neutrality, right? That completely changes Comcast's business model. They cannot raise prices to websites like Google based on high traffic. By the end of Q4, their profits will drop.
I have no coverage from t-mobile or verrizon. We do have a local provider with speeds up to 30mb. :) Then there is AT&T DSL which is even slower and intermittent. It's really Optimum or nothing here (starlink? - nah, wouldn't consider it).
30mbps is fine. It's plenty for gaming and a couple of high quality 1080p streams
5 seconds in and the answer is!!!!!! Internet.
comcast has made it so it's cheaper to get internet bundled with cable. that's how they "trick" their subscriber count for investors.
comcrap has a near monopoly in low income housing with Gov. funding
Comcast is the worst ISP I have ever used and I cut the cord long time ago. Sorry to say Comcast is a big loser.
Why did I quit Comcrap? Cost. Much of the cost is to programming like MSNBC and any other acquisitions that do not help the consumer. It is all for stock holders. When I told my reasons to the CS rep, it was silent on the other end. There was nothing that they could say to keep me.
Cable had the opportunity to go ala cart for their customers. Lobbists got in the way and the idea failed.
I left CommunistCast internet last year comrade, and went to Verizon.
Lon I'm saying this as a fan that wants to see you improve: those AI thumbnails you've been doing recently look horrendous, using AI art is for people who do not care about the quality of their work and I know you're not one of them so please go back to the more basic ones that are just the standard logo for the company you're talking about with some basic editing, they're in way better taste
Unfortunately those thumbnails are performing far better than the ones I make myself.
I OPPOSE Nextgen ATSC 3.0 DRM!!!
I am planning to get glo fiber internet. Do you have any reason why I may be making a poor decision with Glo Fiber? I really want fiber real high speed internet. Thank you.
Copper can not compete with fibre optic. In Canada, Bell guarantees a max of 1.5 Tb download speeds and has an average of 800 Mb to 1 Tb in major cities and a little less in rural areas
So can I just plug in at the pole and get service or is there some sort of authentication? 🤔
Your modem is authentication. The MAC of the equipment needs to be in the system or it won't work. That's with HFC networks. With fiber it's usually an ONT but I have a fiber modem with my service.
I still think no acct = no service, whether it's fiber or hybrid fiber coax.
@@frommatorav1 oh bummer. It looked so inviting.