The two biggest cable companies in the country have clearly bogged down. In the third quarter of 2023, Comcast lost 18,000 broadband customers while Charter gained 63,000. To contrast the extent of the slowdown, Charter gained over 1.3 million customers in 2021 while Charter gained 1.2 million. The growth during the pandemic was not extraordinary, and both companies added 1.4 million customers in 2019 before the pandemic.
The two companies are still the largest ISPs. Comcast had 32.3 million broadband customers at the end of the third quarter of 2023, while Charter had over 30.6 million. Third in size is AT&T at 15.3 million.
Charter is still slowly adding customers due to its strategy of building broadband in rural markets. In the third quarter, half of its growth came from rural areas. Charter won a significant amount of rural subsidy in the RDOF reverse auction in 2020 and has been aggressively pursuing state broadband grants since then. Comcast has also been chasing state grants, and analysts expect that both companies will pursue the upcoming BEAD grants.
There are a number of reasons for the sudden slowdown. At the top of the list is probably prices. The following are the current list prices for the most common broadband products. For both companies, the prices and speeds vary in some markets.
| Download | Upload | Price | |
| Charter | 300 Mbps | 10 Mbps | $84.99 |
| 500 Mbps | 20 Mbps | $104.99 | |
| 1 Gbps | 35 Mbps | $124.99 | |
| Comcast | 200 Mbps | 10 Mbps | $90 + $15 for router |
| 400 Mbps | 10 Mbps | $105 + $15 for router | |
| 800 Mbps | 20 Mbps | $110 + $15 for router | |
| 1 Gbps | 20 Mbps | $115 + $15 for router | |
| 1.2 Gbps | 35 Mbps | $120 + $15 for router |
These prices are significantly higher than the prices being charged by fiber competitors:
| Download | Upload | Price | |
| AT&T | 100 Mbps | 100 Mbps | $60 |
| 300 Mbps | 300 Mbps | $65 | |
| 1 Gbps | 1 Gbps | $80 | |
| 2 Gbps | 2 Gbps | $110 | |
| Frontier | 500 Mbps | 500 Mbps | $59.99 |
| 1 Gbps | 1 Gbps | $79.99 | |
| 2 Gbps | 2 Gbps | $109.99 | |
| Windstream | 500 Mbps | 500 Mbps | $60 |
| 1 Gbps | 1 Gbps | $85 | |
| Verizon | 300 Mbps | 300 Mbps | $49.99 |
| 500 Mbps | 500 Mbps | $69.99 | |
| 1 Gbps | 1 Gbps | $89.99 |
To offset the big price difference with competitors, both companies offer substantial discounts for new customers. Charter tends to continue to renew special pricing while a customer has to work harder to get the discounts at Comcast. Both companies are pushing bundles that include discounted cellular.
As the two charts demonstrate, another big difference is the upload speeds. Both cable companies are upgrading upload speeds to speeds between 100 Mbps and 300 Mbps using mid-split technology upgrades. Both have been talking about upgrading to DOCSIS 4.0 to get symmetrical speeds.
The other new competitor is FWA Cellular Wireless from T-Mobile and Verizon. We don’t know how much traction these companies have in competing against cable companies, but the two companies have added over 7 million customers in the last two years, while Comcast and Charter have stagnated.
| Download | Upload | Price | |
| T-Mobile | 100 Mbps | Best Effort | $65 |
| 100 Mbps | Best Effort | $60 with Autopay | |
| Verizon | 300 Mbps | Best Effort | $45 with Verizon Cell Plan |
| 300 Mbps | Best Effort | $60 | |
| 300 Mbps | Best Effort | $50 with Autopay |
It’s going to be interesting to see if the two cable companies increase rates in 2024. If they don’t, then the only path to higher earnings would be to cut back on customer or slash expenses.
Both companies have thrived on the combination of customer growth and revenue growth from rate increases. Both companies face a serious earnings challenge in the next few years as competitors chip away at customers.