Comcast’s attempt to slow broadband customer losses still isn’t stopping the bleeding as fiber and fixed wireless competition intensifies. In Q4 2025 alone, Comcast lost 181,000 broadband subscribers, even as it leans harder into wireless bundling and other business lines like Peacock and theme parks. Ars Technica reports:
The Q4 net loss is more than the 176,000 loss predicted by analysts, although not as bad as the 199,000-customer loss that spurred [Comcast President Mike Cavanagh’s] comment about Comcast “not winning in the marketplace” nine months ago. The Q4 2025 loss reported today is also worse than the 139,000-customer loss in Q4 2024 and the 34,000-customer loss in Q4 2023.
“Subscriber losses were 181,000, as the early traction we are seeing from our new initiatives was more than offset by continued competitive intensity,” Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said during an earnings call today, according to a Motley Fool transcript. Comcast’s residential broadband customers dropped to 28.72 million, while business broadband customers dropped to 2.54 million, for a total of 31.26 million.
Armstrong said that average revenue per user grew 1.1 percent, “consistent with the deceleration that we had previewed reflecting our new go-to-market pricing, including lower everyday pricing and strong adoption of free wireless lines.” Armstrong expects average revenue per user to continue growing slowly “for the next couple of quarters, driven by the absence of a rate increase, the impact from free wireless lines, and the ongoing migration of our base to simplified pricing.” Comcast Connectivity & Platforms chief Steve Croney said the firm is facing “a more competitive environment from fiber” and continued competition from fixed wireless. “The market is going to remain intensely competitive,” he said.
I’m so glad I live someplace with competition. Google fiber is the best internet I’ve ever had. It actually functions like the advertisements for Comcast used to claim but for less cost. Fuck Comcast
Within the past year I shopped around for a new home internet provider. The legacy companies encouraged if not required talking to a human being to find out anything about service availability and rates and then be subject to a hard sales pitch. Appointment availability for the install was 2+ weeks out. The new fiber companies had all the info I could want clearly online, appointments available within 2 days, with minimal fuss. The legacy company humans were also often incorrect about their own product, potentially lying to make a sale.
If they act like a company from the 90s, they aren’t going to capture customers who came into adulthood after that.
I’m currently moving from a place where my only options are AT&T or the cable company to a place where my only options are AT&T or the cable company.
My condolences. Where is this “competition breeds excellence” outcome that capitalism promised me?
I can understand that speeds vary by area, but it’s not like it’s difficult at all to have those in a database where a web tool can return them based on your zip code. But yeah, it was like that when I signed up with Optimum (nee Suddenlink) years ago.
The other thing they do is require a truck roll for any kind of hookup. They almost got some of my business back but were so rigid that I said “the hell with it”. My fiber provider was having some growing pains and I called Optimum to reactivate my service on a lower plan to use as a backup connection (I work from home). All they needed to do was setup the account and re-authorize my modem (my hookup was still live and I had my own modem). They flat out refused to do any of that and required a tech to come “within 3-5 business days” and read the modem serial number to them to activate it. So I said hell with it, called T-Mobile, and activated my old 5G hotspot.
Or the poor reputations they have of never doing anything because they owned the market. We remember “Time Warner Cable”.
I would guess it’s not just Comcast. Optimum serves my area and they’ve basically been begging people to switch back since this area got fiber a few years ago.
Their offers are like $25/mo for 200/10 Mbps and no data caps. But they’re not guaranteeing the price. Seems like they’re going after the lower end of the market.
I basically say “boo hoo”. Cable companies have sat on their ass and milked their infrastructure for decades (only updating the headend equipment to keep up).
Optimum cold called me once and I flat out told them if they wanted me back, they need to run fiber to my home, give me the same symmetrical speed I have now, for at least $10 less than I’m paying my fiber provider, and lock that price for at least 5 years. The rep basically kinda sighed, so I guess they’ve heard that response from more than just me.
Fuck the horribly lopsided asymmetrical speeds.
Maybe, just maybe, Comcast should have spent all those government subsidies to update its infrastructure to full fiber and not bullshit like packet shaping, inspection and throttling to improve its bottom line and stop customers from using to the fullest extent the very thing we were paying for.
Before I moved, the local government subsidized fiber came into my neighborhood in 6 months (I was pretty far out there in the burbs) and I had 4gbit fiber for $80 a month compared to the forced triple play package I was locked into so I could have the fastest speed from Comcast (800mbit/30mbit) for astounding $350 a month. Top that off, I had a data cap I nearly exceeded monthly of 1tb and that cost and additional $50 for “unlimited“.
So good riddance Comcast/xfinity.
Fucking hate all the coax providers. Absolute monopoly granted to them in insane. I’m stuck with an even worse one - Spectrum. No other options where I live. Tmo home internet is cheaper but it’s not reliable enough despite a $400 antenna pointed directly at their tower. And CGNAT breaks a ton of shit.
My experience with T-Mobile home Internet was awful but I swapped to a T-Mobile business Internet plan. For the same cost I was now able to use my own hardware. All I had was a SIM from them. At best I have gotten 750ish MB down and 200ish MB up. For $50, not bad if you other option is coax.
$70, not $50. And this breaks the deal: https://www.t-mobile.com/business/filtering
Not really usable at home.
W the absolute F
That’s if you turn on the “productivity filter”. You dont have to.
I don’t think it’s optional. I think that’s what separates home internet from business internet. Could someone that has this service confirm?
I have two lines and the second one automatically had this added. I had to get to an engineer to turn it off before figuring out this was the issue. My first line was not on by default.
Tipping point. Their reputation is complete trash. People only subscribe to Comcast as a last resort.
as it leans harder into wireless bundling and other business lines like Peacock and theme parks
Theme parks.
“Kids, pile into the van, we’re going to Comcast World!”
I’m sure they own lots of IP from their various acquisitions. But, fundamentally they’re a cable company.
Universal Studios
Customer service matters assholes
I desperately need a competitor to come in. They’re trying to raise my bill 50% right now and there’s not a single other broadband service at my address.
Imagine how fast this decline would have been if not for all the collusion between providers. I was always surrounded by better options that just didn’t quite serve my area any time I was forced to use these twats.
They would lose me, if I had an alternative. In my neighborhood it’s cable or 1mbps DSL. Neighborhoods across the street to the east and west both have nice and cheap fiber but my neighborhood is older than one and less affluent than the other.
seems like the perfect opportunity to resell their fiber as your own ISP. then in 6-8 months sell your company to them and make a profit large enough to move because your neighbors are gonna be pissed.
I’d go with the DSL option before paying Comcast anything. I swore I’d never use them again in 2004 and every place I’ve moved since one of my requirements is an ISP that isn’t Comcast. When I moved into my house I found the Comcast cable buried in my back yard and chopped it. Fuck em!
Maybe take some of that broadband expansion money you took over the last 20 years and upgrade your network.
As a NYer: Is that what’s supposed to happen?
Good. Fuck them. They fucked everyone else long enough.
At one point in 2017 I was paying $60/month for 30 Mbps/5Mbps.
Five. Fucking. Megabits. Up.
Same cost, but 15 and 3 most of the time. We had no other option.
I don’t think it’s gotten much better. Mine just recently went from 10Mbps to 20Mbps.
1994, cable lines installed by Adelphia in my area. Soon after, bought by Comcast, top speed - 280mbps for $60 in 2017, then $70 2 years later. NO new lines installed since 1994. 2020 ice storm downs miles and miles of cable and electric, they report “upgraded lines”, my limit is increased to 400mbps, still get 280. 3 mo later, price goes to $80. Frontier installed fiber last year, I told them I’m cancelling. Their save offer? 300mbps for $85. My jaw dropped. I wasn’t going to stay no matter what, but I felt gaslighted.
I think Crapcast offered me a year of free internet.
I told them to go pound sand. I was lucky enough to get (almost) gigabit fiber for ~$80/month.
Comcast—in the top ten of the shittiest companies of all time that no one wants to have to deal with—is surprised that their “new” deal of, “be slightly less villainous, and expect all our problems to go away” isn’t working.
Who knew that spending thirty years treating your customers like garbage would have them bail the moment they have a choice?
Yeah, literally everybody.
The fact that they think that “bundling” products people don’t want with products that they do want is a strategy to get MORE customers give you an idea if how disconnected these idiots are.
When you spend this much time fucking your customers the last thing they want is more shit from you. I’ll be dead in the ground before I let the people who fuck up my simple Internet billing every month handle my wireless plan and I’ll be damned if I pay fucking RENT on a shitty modem and router.
