With ‘cable monopoly’ over, Comcast is chasing mobile users

After years of rising cable and internet rates, punctuated by short-term specials that spike higher when the come-on period ends, Comcast this spring changed prices for new Xfinity residential services in ways that surprised some longtime observers.

The Philadelphia-based internet, media, and theme-park company rolled out new Xfinity internet plans for new and current users, starting at $55 a per month and including unlimited data — with the price locked in for five years.

Comcast also added a year’s free mobile service, with WiFi, and free phones and upgrades that analysts valued at up to $1,000.

The new arrangements, which amount to a price cut for many customers, are “a highly uncharacteristic move for Comcast,” Frank G. Louthan IV, media and telecom analyst at brokerage Raymond James & Associates, told clients in a report last month.

He called it a departure from Comcast’s historically “rational” refusal to lock in multiyear rates and an acknowledgment that competition, especially with new wireless internet services from rivals AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, is here to stay for Comcast and the handful of smaller, territorial companies that once made up “the cable monopoly.”

As if to underscore the new importance of selling mobile internet to new customers, Comcast announced Tuesday that it is renaming its South Philly sports and concert venue as the Xfinity Mobile Arena. Wells Fargo, which with its predecessor banks had sponsored the arena since it opened in 1996, said last year that it was taking its name off the building, effective this summer.

Comcast, whose share price has bounced between $30 and $45 for three years, lost more high-speed Internet subscribers than expected in the first three months of 2025, even as its smaller mobile Internet business and its as-yet unprofitable Peacock streaming business gained users rapidly, noted Dave Novosel, senior analyst at bond research analyst Gimme Credit in New York.

At the company’s first-quarter earnings call April 24, Comcast executives confirmed to investors that the new pricing and product arrangements for residential customers are a response to the challenges facing their biggest line of business.

“In this intensely competitive environment, we are not winning in the marketplace,” despite one-gigabit WiFi service and a large national network, Comcast president Michael Cavanaugh told investors on the call.

David Watson, CEO of the internet and mobile unit, which Comcast calls Connectivity & Platforms, pointed to two primary causes: Comcast’s lack of price clarity and predictability and “the level of ease in doing business with us."

Comcast’s response to the struggle has been to give it attention from top management — “with the highest urgency,” Cavanaugh said on the call.

Earlier this year, the company named 30-year Comcast veteran Steven Croney as top operations officer in Watson’s business group. The group also recruited its first “chief growth officer,” Jon Gieselman, from satellite-TV rival DirecTV. He earlier worked at Expedia and Apple.

Investors and consumers shouldn‘t see the new approach as just a “broad repricing,” according to Watson. Rather, Comcast is getting away from a model of deep, up-front discounts followed by “untenable increases after promotional periods,” he said in the conference call.

Instead, Comcast is seeking customers who like the idea of bundling video and mobile services at a single price with a single company billing. Watson said these customers are more likely to stay with the company.

Watson said phone companies “are still marketing very aggressively,” stretching their fiber and wireless networks deep into cable territory.

Comcast has offered phone service for more than 20 years and mobile internet since 2017, but a minority of users also choose Comcast’s phone service. Watson sees it as a growth area for the company.

Won‘t the price for new phones rise significantly with tariffs? asked Craig Moffett, a veteran media analyst, on the call. Comcast’s Watson responded: “We think we’ll manage through it” with “good offers on devices.”

Brian Roberts, Comcast’s second-generation chairman and CEO, weighed in at the end of the call, telling investors he was “quite optimistic,” though the new pricing “may take a little time to fully take hold.”

Roberts noted that the company’s profitable business internet, studio production, and Universal theme park units have been growing. The company plans to spin off its cable networks — CNBC, MSNBC, USA, E!, and others — later this year into a new company, Versant, while keeping NBC, Universal, and Bravo.

That roughly matches the separation of entertainment-media streaming-on-demand by companies like Fox and Disney and online-based competitors such as YouTube (owned by Google), Netflix, and other streaming services, from networks’ live-content business, mostly news and sports, analyst Moffett noted in another recent report.

Moffett is concerned that Comcast’s mixed collection of businesses is susceptible to a global slowdown. He estimates that about a quarter of visitors to Comcast’s Universal parks arrive from foreign countries and notes that tourist arrivals in the U.S. have been falling this year. Separately, Comcast advertising cannot rely on the presidential election or Olympics to buoy sales.

At the same time, Moffett notes that video subscribers as a group are “recession resistant” — and that AT&T, the largest of the mobile internet services, continues boosting prices, a sign the companies see growth ahead over the next few years.

Though Comcast is offering simpler, steadier prices and mobile incentives to retain and attract customers, “there is no sign of a price war” that would cut consumer costs and long-term profitability for all the pay video providers, he concluded.