Comcast has decided to raise its cable modem leasing fees to $5/month from $3 month, a 66% increase. The price hike applies to its markets nationwide. Comcast says the price hikes are necessary due to higher costs of rolling out technologies like DOCSIS 3.0.
Comcast tells Multichannel News, “We continually invest in providing customers with next-generation equipment and technology that delivers advanced voice and Internet services with enhanced capabilities. Our costs for this new equipment will increase by 167% over the next two years. As a result, we will increase modem equipment charges by $2.” Multichannel points out that based on Comcast’s latest cable modem subscriber counts, they stand to gain an additional $360 million annually from this fee increase. Customers can purchase cable modems at retail for as low as $100.
There have been additional reports of Comcast raising cable rates in select markets across the country. There’s a widely held perception about cable companies continuing to raise pricing, even in the face of competition. Telco competitors have seized on this perception, and waged a variety of public relation and marketing battles because of it. Many have instituted ‘pricing for life’ campaigns, specifically citing increasing costs of cable service. I suspect they’ll seize on this latest move by Comcast in much the same way.
With the cost of bandwidth continuing to drop daily how can the service cost increase? h/w lease is just a money grab anyway. GREEDY bastards!
We've had some real success on this very issue. We don't charge for DSL modems (unless they need to be replaced due to customer negligence), while Comcast does lease the modems. We've done some comparison marketing on this issue, and seen some decent success with ot.
comcast has a contract to serve our geographic area. the local city councils approve the contract. it's time to inform our city councils of the impact of this type of pricing. cable tends to be reliable and sufficient speed, but the price gauging at the mbps speed level and at the cable modem hardware level hardly serves the average resident. we need to inform and pressure our elected officials to negotiate contracts that serve the public.
DOCSIS 3.0 capable modems are definitely more expensive than the DOCSIS 1.1/2.0 models, by a factor of 1.5 to 2x, depending on the feature set (with our without Wi-Fi, with or without PacketCable)
As Comcast is rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 they are likely looking for a way to recover a small amount of that upgrade cost through cable modem rental fees. While 18 months of the rental free would adequately cover the hardware cost, they may be looking to cover some other costs, too.
Every company covers their CPE costs somehow — some build it into the monthly price, others as a separate charge.