comcast

Cable giant Comcast reported solid first-quarter results as it continues to add high-speed Internet customers at a good clip.

Comcast reported first-quarter earnings of $943 million, or 34 cents a share, on revenue of $12.13 billion, up 31.8 percent from a year ago. The results include two months of NBC Universal results. Excluding transaction costs related to NBC Universal, Comcast reported earnings of 36 cents a share. The earnings were 2 cents per share ahead of Wall Street estimates.

High-speed Internet revenue showed solid growth as revenue surged 8.8 percent to $2.1 billion. Comcast's video … Read more

The Netflix juggernaut showed no signs of slowing down during the first quarter of 2011.

On the contrary, for the quarter ended March 31 (PDF), Netflix reported worldwide net profits of $60 million, or $1.11 per share, on revenue of $719 million. The earnings for the Web's top video-rental service were nearly twice the $32 million the company saw for the same period a year ago.

A survey of 25 analysts by FactSet Research showed that Netflix was expected to earn $1.07 a share. As for the company's closely watched number of subscribers, Netflix reported that … Read more

Comcast is now delivering ultra high-speed Internet service to more than 40 million homes around the U.S., the company announced today.

Dubbed Extreme 105, the offering provides customers with 105Mbps download speeds and up to 10Mbps upload speeds. The service is available in several major markets, including San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, the cable provider said. It plans to roll it out in other markets going forward.

Reports of Comcast's 105Mbps service cropped up on the Web last year when a forum user posted what was claimed to be a bill from the cable provider … Read more

The total number of paid TV subscribers was up last year, but cable companies weren't so lucky.

According to In-Stat, the total number of paid TV subscribers around the world was up over 6 percent compared with 2009. The research firm said that gains in subscribers were seen in "nearly every region" around the globe. However, when it came to cable television subscriptions, only Western Europe saw a jump compared with 2009.

Elsewhere around the world, cable customers were migrating to satellite or IPTV, the research firm said.

Growth in the paid TV business in 2010 has … Read more

Amazon scored tops in customer service out of 143 different companies, according to the Temkin Group.

Based on a survey of 6,000 different consumers in January, the 2011 Temkin Experience Ratings rated companies across a variety of industries based on recent dealings with customers. The survey looked at interactions online, in person, and over the phone, and asked consumers how their needs were met, how easy it was to do what they needed to do, and how they felt about the overall experience.

Retail chains did well in the survey, with Amazon followed by Costco, Lowe's, and Sam'… Read more

Sometimes, late at night, those who run companies lie awake, slapping their foreheads.

"Why did we do that?" they mutter, as they dribble. "Why?"

I wonder whether those who run Comcast might be wondering the same after asking staff to vote in the "Worst Company in America" competition run by the Consumerist.

It seems that someone at Comcast wasn't happy that last year the company won (or lost) the Consumerist's competition. So this year, discovering that the Consumerist's readers had nominated it again, they sent a memo out to staff, asking … Read more

Comcast is ushering in the launch of a 24-hour 3D channel by enlisting the help of Kings of Leon and the National Hockey League.

The cable provider said yesterday that starting at 3 p.m. PT on Sunday, its new Xfinity 3D channel will begin broadcasting. The channel will start with an airing of the 2011 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic, pitting the Montreal Canadiens against the Calgary Flames outdoors at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. After the game is over, Comcast plans to broadcast a Kings of Leon concert from Hamburg, Germany.

From there, the channel will broadcast 3D programming … Read more

With its acquisition of NBC Universal finally done, Comcast today reported a boost in both sales and earnings for its fourth quarter.

For the quarter ended December 31, the cable carrier earned $1.02 billion, a gain of 6.6 percent from the $955 million earned in the prior year's quarter. Sales grew by 7.2 percent to reach $9.72 billion compared with $9.07 billion a year ago. Both results managed to beat the expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, according to Reuters, and prompted the company to lift its annual dividend by 19 percent.

With … Read more

Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two major Internet service providers, will participate in the World IPv6 Day testing June 8 to help test readiness for the next-generation Internet Protocol.

Because the two companies are crucial gateways to the Internet for millions of people, their test will be an important--both for trying their own technology and for supplying some IPv6 users who can help other's setup. The companies announced the test today.

Internet Protocol version 6 supplies a vastly larger address space for attaching computers to the Internet than IPv4, which was established with a paltry 4.3 billion addresses … Read more